Dangerous Gifts
by SGCbearcub
Summary: Laby/HP Crossover.J/S & SS/HG: Snape never asked to be rescued. Sarah never asked for magic. Jareth doesn't generally ask, period. The Ministry should have remembered that, back when they assumed they won the Goblin Wars. Nothing is ever what it seems.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This was supposed to be a fast-paced short story done in time for Xmas 2008. You would think I'd know better by now..._

_Disclaimer: As always, not mine. I doubt Jim Henson and JK Rowling intended for these two universes to meet,lol. My muse was drinking something in her eggnog.  
_

_Spoilers: Book 7 (toss the epilogue). M for violence and later content._

* * *

_**"I wish there was something I could do."**_

It was a mortal wish. A true wish, backed by all the fervor of the naked mortal heart. In that moment, whoever had muttered those words had meant them with all her soul. Even so, and even backed with mortal magic, the words were not enough to stir the Labyrinth to action. Which made him curious as to why they had caught his attention in the first place.

Sweeping into the world Above, he considered motivation. Mortal hearts were tricky things, and he sensed no ties of kinship nor the claims of a lover. Simply the heart-felt sense of failure and protest from one making the final journey from child to woman. He was not, therefore, exceedingly surprised to find himself brought to the side of a corpse.

He found a safe perch in the rafters, and peered down at the oddity below. The faintest of breaths was barely detectable, and even the ears of an owl detected no sign of a heartbeat.

Not quite a corpse then, for all that.

Mortal dreams and mortal magic leaked from the man, tainted with bitterness and sacrifice. Jareth eyed the silver fluid with fascination. He had never seen dreams manifest in such form, and they were a sweet lure to one such as him. Nor did they do the dreamer much good, spilled like a broken egg across a dusty floor. The Goblin King could be generous, especially in the face of curiosity. A twist of time and a deft pull of magic saw the departing dreams back where they belonged.

They were incomplete, but they were no longer maimed and broken.

Feathers ruffled as other scents, hidden beneath the dreams, became noticeable. Jareth hissed instinctively at the tang of snake, and peered around aggressively. When nothing slithered from the shadows, he hissed again to anything else that might be lurking and drew in another breath. Mortal children and mortal magic. Two sons and a daughter of Mil. A man who scented strongly of snake, and one who scented of dreams and home. Jareth blinked, and dropped to the floor.

The Goblin King landed on booted feet, and regarded the man on the floor with interest. There was a story there, for a cold winter's eve. Even were the stranger's scent not a tell-tale sign, that nose and the heavy brows were unmistakable and Jareth could not recall having been so careless as to misplace one of his own in recent years. He tapped a gloved finger against his lower lip as he tilted his headed thoughtfully. The sons of Mil were a thankless lot, however this particular son would be dead if Jareth did nothing.

"Shall I save him, Sarah?" he mused quietly. "Would this be generous in your eyes?"

He rather thought not. His green-eyed girl was stingy with her definitions. However, the man undoubtedly had a claim on the Goblin King were he conscious enough to make it. That he was also a son of Mil had...possibilities. He had left Sarah to her own devices for too long. The side effects of her time in the Labyrinth were becoming manifest, and he would not have her defenseless in the trials to come.

His choice was made then, for good or ill.

A roll of his wrist and a perfectly formed crystal appeared at his fingertips. He regarded it for a long moment, then shrugged, and let it fall. The crystal seemed to gather light as it fell, and shattered, momentarily outlining the body on the floor in a golden shimmer of magic. Then they were gone.


	2. Chapter 2

His wand was missing.

His wand was missing and something was touching his arm. Lashing out, he heard a scream as his hand connected with something hard. The scream ended abruptly with a large crash and a chuckle.

"Amusing as that was, perhaps you should open your eyes before flinging my goblins into walls."

Severus Snape, Potions Master - and Headmaster of Hogwarts, he reminded himself - froze as he tried to weave a world where Lucius Malfoy sounded like Albus Dumbledore. Not even in his worst nightmares.

"I'm in Hell,"he said flatly, keeping his eyes closed.

"I suppose that's one interpretation,"the voice said musingly.

The room smelled of ancient stone, warm leather, and wet chicken. Reflexively his nose wrinkled at the pungent aroma. Disgust warred with astonishment that he was still alive, and he tried to decide if snake-induced hallucinations would smell so incredibly bad. He reached a hand to his throat and hesitated as he felt the faintest hint of scar tissue. Not a dream then.

He opened his eyes.

He appeared to be lying on the floor. What he could see of the walls and rafters suggested a castle of some sort. As did the pallet of straw he was lying on. Severus lifted his hand out of the way so he could stare at it in disbelief. Straw. A rustle had him peering into the shadows to see a small misshapen creature peering back. A bogle of some sort, he decided.

"I must say, so far you are taking this remarkably well," the voice said.

Severus was too well versed not to hear the hint of malicious anticipation. He was, however, too damn tired to care. He turned his wrist to stare at the pale unmarked skin of his forearm. Potter was dead then, he thought bleakly. Just like Lily. As Severus should be.

"You were quite close to death," the voice continued blithely.

They had all been close to death. Malfoy. Potter. Stunted by the shadows cast by their fathers and withered with it. Nor had he much faith either of Potter's two cohorts had lived. They had never been meant to survive. Simply serve their turn on the wheel of sacrifice, and fade when their purpose was done. Like Severus himself, as it turned out.

"Do not expect me to celebrate,"he said flatly.

There would be no more debts owed. He turned his head to say as much and found himself staring in shock. It _was_ Lucius Malfoy. Malfoy with a hag's head of hair and an S&M fetish. Severus felt his eyebrows climbing as he sat up to get a better look, thoughts of dying momentarily suspended by disbelief.

The wizard watching him with an odd sort of intensity was sprawled in negligent arrogance on a throne of bone. White shirt, black pants, leather boots. Gloved hands dangled from languid wrists, attached to arms lying carelessly along the curves of the armrests. The habits of courtesy pushed Severus into standing, but he swore, even as he did it, that he would not kneel.

Severus was done with kneeling.

The bones of the wizard's face were drawn even finer than Draco's, but where Draco was almost pretty, the harsh planes and edges of this man's face eluded such a mundane description. On closer inspection, the man's resemblance to the Malfoy's appeared to be less about his features and more about lazy inbred elegance.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

And the delusions of grandeur that went with it.

Severus watched with distaste as a hybrid bogle that violated several Ministry edicts on the cross-breeding and domestication of Dark creatures rattled into the throne-room under the weight of several badly dented pieces of armor. Severus crossed his arms and glared at the lunatic on the throne. The man was staring at the bogle impatiently.

"The girl, your Majesty. She said it again. She said 'I wish',"the bogle said excitedly.

"...and?" the self-proclaimed King snapped.

"The building blew up!"

There was a long silence. Then a sigh. "Arson, Sarah? Really. Turning into quite the little vigilante, aren't you?" There was another sigh, then a sharp backhanded wave of the hand. "Go make certain the rest of the neighborhood doesn't burn down."

The bogle bobbed shortly. "Yes, your Majesty!"

Severus turned to watch it run out of the room. He turned back to find the lunatic gazing at him with narrowed eyes.

"You seem curiously lacking in questions for a Son of Mil," the lunatic said, tilting his head with inquiry.

It took Severus a moment to place the reference, then he had to wonder – grimly – what it was about his fate that seemed determined to cast him into the path of dictators, sociopaths, and benevolent tyrants alike. Merlin knew what this one wanted, but it could not be good. Those willing to spirit away one of the Dark Lord's inner circle were few in number.

What had Lucius said about the Milesians?

Wizards who claimed that wizard-kind was directly descended from a mortal son of the Tuatha De Denaan. That Mil Espaigne had become the right ruler of Ireland after the defeated Fair Folk retreated to their underground Kingdoms. Lucius had thought them quite mad, of course. Not even Malfoy had the arrogance to claim to be descended from gods.

It had surprised Severus at first, that the purebloods would not embrace such a philosophy. Then it had occurred to him, that by that line of thinking, most of Ireland and a fair chunk of the rest of Great Britain could likely claim the same line of descent.

Not exactly proof of manifest destiny.

There were rumors that some Milesians claimed closer kin with the absent Tuatha De Denaan and lived out those fantasies of godhood as best they could. If Severus remembered rightly, they concentrated on the Elemental side of their heritage, using wandless rather than wanded magic. Which would explain the absence of any sort of spellwork within range of his magical senses.

"Would you be a member of the Seelie or Unseelie Court?"he asked politely.

There was a flash of teeth as the lunatic grinned. "My Kingdom is older than that, Master Alchemist. Auberon and his ilk emigrated to Briton and established their Courts nearly 1000 years after the Fall."

Severus narrowed his eyes and the lunatic laughed merrily.

"The Fall from Above, Alchemist,"he said mischievously,"not the Fall from Heaven."

There was a glint in that confiding tone that begged him to respond. He had spent too many years at the right hand of Albus Dumbledore for that not to be made clear. As was the lunatic's disappointment when he failed to ask the obvious question.

The lunatic sighed.

"So be it,"he muttered. And glared at Severus a touch snidely. "I had hoped you would prove slightly more interesting."

It was his cue to bow. Mockingly, with a touch of insolence. Malfoy would have found it amusing. Dumbledore would have been annoyed, and Voldemort – well, one never knew how he would react.

He tried. Instead, the resentment and anger he had thought long conquered reared it's head and roared loud enough to satisfy even a Gryffindor. Not pride, he realized. That he could have bent to his will. This was something deeper.

"Severus Snape,"he said calmly, ignoring all the historical rules about revealing one's true name. "Recently, the Potions Master and Headmaster of Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

There was silence and Severus wondered what this lunatic had heard of him. Amusement had fled, and the self-styled King was regarding him with a disturbingly intent look. Severus tightened his Occlumency shields.

The lunatic cocked his head. "Is it defiance or fear I wonder."

"I have bowed to power before,"Severus said simply. "Never again."

The King leaned back in his throne and his gaze slipped briefly to Severus's covered left arm. "What a pity."

Severus felt his left hand clench, and forced himself to relax. He was done with games that mocked his loyalty and held his self-respect as worthless.

"I would offer you a bargain, Severus Snape."

Severus frowned.

"A daughter of Mil has recently woken to power. It has the potential to cause some havoc in the Goblin Kingdom. I would have you teach her the beginnings of control."

Goblin Kingdom?

He had never heard of it. He wondered – with some amusement – what Gringott's would have to say about the matter.

"Is there any reason you can't teach her, your Majesty?"

The self-styled Goblin King gave him a dark look. "Yes."

There was no further explanation and Severus felt a trickle of unease begin to mutter warnings.

"I'm not good with children," he said instead, casting around for anything he might have missed.

He tried sensing for his wand and any anti-Apparition barriers the other might have in place. The ancient stone had a low-level awareness to it, similar to Hogwarts and Malfoy Manor. Awareness, but no true sentience.

The Goblin King lifted an eyebrow."How unfortunate, given your previous line of work." Then he shrugged. "No matter. Sarah is no child, as you judge these things. I have managed to keep her from coming to the attention of your Ministry thus far. With the recent chaos, they didn't look too hard at the unusual. I fear that time is over, however."

"Especially if she keeps blowing up buildings,"Severus commented sarcastically.

Jareth flopped back into his throne, looking every inch the petulant teenager. "You have no idea. The ungrateful child exhausts me."

Given that the Goblin King was clearly several years older than a teenager, Severus found his abrupt change of mood to be disturbingly familiar.

"Exactly how old is this child - who isn't a child?" Severus asked slowly.

The lunatic blinked. Then tipped back his head. "Hogbrain! " he shouted. He spent the next five minutes tapping his forefinger against his thigh, glaring at the doorway to the throne room.

Severus raised one eyebrow slightly as a wizened dwarf stumped angrily into the room and glared back. He didn't bow or scrape and Voldemort would have had him screaming for mercy on the spot.

"How old is Sarah?" the King demanded.

The dwarf smirked. "You forget her birthday again, Your Majesty?"

Goblin eyes narrowed dangerously. "When did I forget her birthday last time, Higgle?"

The dwarf started to answer, then shuffled uneasily.

"Yes,"the King said silkily."And we'll have no repeat of that, will we? Now answer the question."

The dwarf muttered something and scuffed at the floor. The King raised an imperious eyebrow while Severus tensed and waited for hexes to fly.

"She'll be twenty-six,"the dwarf finally growled resentfully.

"Why thank-you, Warthog. See that you pick out a nice gift for me this year. Something she won't be inclined to throw out the window this time."

Severus watched as the dwarf deflated, then stamped out of the room. The King glared after him, a disturbing, intently, angry expression on his face. Then, whatever emotion was feeding it leeched away leaving him looking hollow and burnt. It was a state Severus was somewhat familiar with.

"Twenty-six,"the Goblin King murmured softly. Then he smiled strangely. " I can reorder time, but I can't seem to keep track of it. "

If this unknown woman had been untrained since her magic blossomed, it would be a wonder if she wasn't mad. Severus doubted there was much he could salvage at this stage, but he understood the lunatic's concerns. The Ministry would bind her power for her own protection and Obliviate her if she couldn't prove she had her magic under control.

"Why didn't you send her to Hogwarts?"

"Jareth."

Severus blinked. "I'm sorry?"

A gloved hand waved irritably. "You seem determined to ignore where you are standing. And given that we will be meeting Above, if all goes well, I can't exactly answer to 'Hey You.'"

"I...see."

Jareth snorted inelegantly. "Doubtful. But I've learned to accept these things when dealing with your kind." Then his expression darkened. "Do not, however, forget what I am, Alchemist. For the moment, I am lenient. But I am not always generous."

For a single breath, something peered at Severus that he didn't recognize. Madness perhaps, for it didn't seem to be age, or wisdom, nor even threat. And for the space of that breath, Severus grabbed for a definition, then nearly lost his balance when it disappeared. Replaced by a lunatic King with the mentality of a spoiled brat.

Clearly, near-death had disarranged his senses.

Jareth leaned back in his throne and looked tired. "The magic did not awaken on its own. It was yanked screaming into existence in her fifteenth year. I was not aware it had flowered fully, until she turned seventeen, and by then it was too late. I had no intention of sacrificing her to your petty war."

Petty.

If Jareth had been disdainful, or mocking, Severus would killed him him for that word. So many lives ruined. So many people lost. And yet the word was remarkably free of emotion. Simply judgment absolute. A petty war, for petty reasons, no matter the final cost.

A crystal was suddenly balanced on the ends of gloved fingertips, and Severus wondered where it had come from. He had felt no magic used to create it. The eyes behind it, one brown, one blue, watched him intently.

"For your assistance...I offer you a dream,"Jareth said lightly. "Pick one, and it's yours."


	3. Chapter 3

Sarah Williams took stock of her kingdom as it stretched out before her.

Her borrowed subjects gathered, giggling and laughing in the trees, eager to be away to mischief. Their hunger fed her own and she fought the urge to stalk forward on merciless feet, sweeping her arms before her to let loose the demons of destruction. She was Titania. She was Queen of all she surveyed. She was Boudicca reborn.

She yelped as her watch beeped.

She was late for class.

The wind tugged at her hair as she raced across the campus green, half a dozen goblins tumbling along behind her. She had no fear for their antics. They were remarkably well-behaved these days. Perhaps because they had more fun when she took them hunting and she had banished more than one goblin for lack of judgment. The innocent were not fair game, and the Goblin King was obliging enough not to return the goblins she wished away.

She almost missed the magic as the fabric of reality twisted and ripped, spitting a black-clad figure into her path. Black hair, pale face, and a nose that tried and failed to match the avian cruelty of the Goblin King. Perhaps it was that fleeting resemblance that made her pause, kept her from reaching for the wishes she kept stored in her pockets. The goblins snarled and circled her protectively.

"Miss Williams, I presume,"the man said, by way of inadequate introduction.

Sarah eyed him warily. This was not the first time she had been accosted by someone with magic. She had learned to keep her distance. The man grimaced and turned his head to glare at the goblins.

"Were you aware that you are infested with bogles?"he asked with evident distaste.

The cadence of his voice was not precisely that of the Goblin King. The accent was similar, and the seductive edges of it wrapped around her, whispering of decadence and fey magic. She tightened her grip on the bag of salt in her pocket and waited. The goblins had hunkered down and their eyes had begun to take on a tinge of red-eyed malevolence.

"I have a message for you,"the man said, reaching into his pocket,"from Jar..."

Quick as thought, she cast the salt and spoke the wish she needed. The man stiffened, momentarily caught out of time, and she darted past him while he was still bound by the salt. The goblins cackled as they streaked after her, and she left the man behind.

* * *

Severus stood gaping after the girl as she fled from him, the bogles bouncing and shrieking behind her. Then he turned his head to stare dumbfounded at his boots.

"I do believe I warned you she would be suspicious."

Wondering why he hadn't sensed the Apparition wake, Severus continued to stare at his feet.

"She bound me,"he said, forcing himself to voice the words in spite of his disbelief. "She bloody well bound me with salt!"

Jareth grinned. "Sarah has...a formidable imagination." Then his smile faded. "However, she is far too young to be dealing in such magics."

Severus pulled his wand from his pocket and tapped his boot firmly. He gave a sigh of relief when it came unstuck without resistance. "It's startling, but she can't actually damage herself too badly. If she overloads, she'll simply pass out." The other boot came unstuck and he looked up to see Jareth regarding him with a puzzled and mildly alarmed expression.

"My dear Alchemist - are you under some misapprehension that she is channeling her magic through her own body?"

Severus twitched and clenched his jaw at the unexpected challenge to his professional opinion. "We see it all the time with First Years. Especially Muggleborns. She'll be fine once we get her a wand and she can focus her magic properly,"he said stiffly.

A strange expression flashed across delicate features, then was gone. "Her magic was focused, Alchemist. She focused through the words."

Severus supposed it was part of Jareth's Milesian delusion. "We call that wandless magic."

Jareth gave an odd hiss that sounded one part angered and three parts exasperation. "Foolish wizard. She is focusing through the words, not her own body. Do you have any idea...?" he cut himself off abruptly and began muttering in a guttural language that made Severus's throat ache just from listening. Jareth cut himself off and stared at him mutely for a long minute, then took a slow breath.

"Your people have forgotten much,"he said finally.

"Then please, enlighten me oh great King,"Severus said through his teeth. Malfoy would have been reluctantly amused. Voldemort would have killed him on the spot. Severus was just glad he no longer had to care about either. Dreams notwithstanding - not that he believed that load of Doxie droppings - Severus planned to do the job, collect his money, and Apparate somewhere warm. It had occurred to him belatedly that not being dead was going to be awkward as he had made no prior plans regarding keeping himself in that state.

Nor for keeping himself out of Azkaban, which was infinitely more important.

"Words are a dangerous thing, Alchemist,"Jareth said, more grimly than Severus had ever seen the man. "As you should know. They have the power to change worlds."

"I am quite familiar with spellwork," Severus snapped.

Jareth tilted his head inquiringly,"Those paltry things you use to inform intent? I think not. Attend Wizard, for I do not speak lightly on this matter. Surely,"he said dryly,"you have discovered that the strength of a man's wand is not a true reflection of his power?"

Severus glared as the other dropped his gaze suggestively, then cocked his head in an almost flirtatious manner. When Severus did not respond, the other rolled his eyes.

"Foolish child,"Jareth said mockingly, and there was more than a hint of amused frustration, as if with a child that refused to listen. Severus was familiar with the emotion - although he did not ever recall being amused by it. Nor was he particularly pleased to be on the receiving end once again. One Albus Dumbledore was enough for a lifetime.

"You build your perceptions about power upon sand, Alchemist,"Jareth said mildly. "You have gained a certain level of proficiency by binding yourself to that perception, but you have also trapped yourself within it. I would have thought a Master Alchemist would have glimpsed this truth by now."

"I,"Severus said, as evenly as he could,"am still waiting for an explanation."

Jareth hissed something that sounded highly unflattering, then narrowed his eyes. "You lay your wands on the table and judge one another by the strength of their cores. Is that blunt enough for you? Yet you miss a fundamental truth about magic. It need not be a river. Indeed, sometimes the most delicate work would be swept away by the stronger currents."

Severus blinked as the man's skin seem to shiver, as though settling ruffled feathers.

"Magic,"Jareth said precisely,"is informed by will and intent. The focus is merely a way to control that energy, to keep it from scattering. Children are creatures of absolutes, and focus instinctively through their hands and thus-as you say - are limited to works of magic that do not require more power than their bodies can handle. A wand is capable of directing much more, and the type of wand dictates the type of magic it is most suited to direct. A sweeter core will compress and direct the magic without resistance. It burns out swiftly, so a delicate touch is needed, but I'm sure you have noted the intricate traceries that are possible."

The look Jareth sent him was patronizing, and Severus shifted uncomfortably as he recalled his own rather condescending attitude toward wands built for charm-work. Jareth regarded him for a moment, and his eyes darkened abruptly.

"The wand you carry, Master Alchemist, is suited for little more than battle-magics. Impressive, but hardly subtle. I assume you have a second wand for your more advanced Alchemy?"

For a moment, rage was his first response. Anger at the baiting insult, oh so familiar from his time with Voldemort. And yet, even as the instinctive snarl rose to his lips, the words of some of the more obscure Potion's manuals whispered to him. They laughed gently, teasing him with possibility. Wands had little place in Potion's work. He shivered as he remembered the seductive murmur of magic as he teased it from his hands and merged it while stirring. Not all Potions were complacent, or delicate however, and yet they withered beneath his wand.

Merlin himself had said the secret to the Art was skill, not power.

Severus clenched his fist as lust and want surged through him. Knowledge and the desire to know. Temptation he had lost himself within almost two decades ago. He had thought himself past that particular flaw, and when he met Jareth's gaze, he was surprised to see a hint of sympathy and more than a touch of sorrow there.

"A focus merely contains the magic, in order that you shape it. Pull too much power and the focus resists or is destroyed. It is a limiter on what can be achieved, and what damage you can do. Nothing less, nothing more,"Jareth said softly. "But words are intangible. They cannot be destroyed by magic. As such, the only limit is the will and intent and imagination of the one who speaks them. Imagine Wizard, the concentration needed to shape those words while controlling the magic. It requires an incredible strength of will and the ability to see only that which is required. And therein lies the danger. Words, by their very nature, are defined by the speaker. They are mutable, changeable. They can even be deceptive. A wielder who chooses unwisely, or allows himself to be distracted by secondary meanings, may unintentionally create that which was not intended. A wielder who loses concentration, at best may shatter the spell. But at worst - ah, at worst he may substitute the wrong word, and allow that word to shape his intent on a subconscious level. Words..."

Severus felt a cold chill grip his spine, and for one moment had absolutely no doubt that Jareth was speaking from experience.

"Words can be a dangerous thing,"the Goblin King said darkly.


	4. Chapter 4

The encounter with the dark man had left her wary and the goblins unsettled. For the most part, their pranks were more or less harmless - unless she had been threatened. Then their anger spilled over onto any hapless mortals in their path for several hours to come. Instead of wasting her time trying to keep them in line, she skipped class, and took the lonely way home.

She had chosen her block with deliberate care when she started her undergraduate studies. Her parents had been horrified. It was located in what had been a nice neighborhood once, on the outskirts of London, with parks and pleasant older buildings with good bone structure. Part of a theater district, back before the theaters went out of business. Actors, being continually out of work, had never made good tenants, and the block owners had not invested much in their upkeep. The theaters were soon turned into after-hours clubs and stripper bars.

It had been all downhill from there.

The parks had been her first project. Lovers, and law-abiding citizens were left alone, but the vermin soon learned to avoid anything green. Drug dealers found their stashes exploded and drifting along the ground. Their money lifted by greedy fingers and spirited into the donation box for the local children's shelter. Muggers located safer hunting grounds and would-be rapists ended up in the hospital, hysterical and hallucinating, their genitals mauled and chewed and quite useless for anything except urination after that.

It was all very frustrating for the criminal element.

Bullies got their laces tied together and their clothing shredded by tiny claws. Cars that idled near the school for no apparent reason suffered flat tire after flat tire until the police started asking interesting questions. Such as why the driver was in that particular location so often. On one rainy night, the driver of a white van with rusty patches simply disappeared. When the DNA tests on the carpet inside came back matching that of several missing girls, no one looked too hard for the body.

Briefcases broke open spilling secrets that left owners red-faced and blustering. Boots of local gang members popped open just as patrolmen walked by. Truck doors rolled open, revealing stolen TVs to stunned police officers, and several politicians with a taste for children were found with their pants down, screaming in dirty hotel rooms while their erstwhile victims giggled at nothing in the corner.

Sarah's father had hoped with the completion of her first degree, she would move to a neighborhood with a better reputation. Instead, he near had a heart attack when she told him she wanted to buy her block. She had always been an odd child, however, and he loved her anyway. He lent her the down-payment and helped her with the legal documents, all the while assuming she'd lose her shirt within six months. And at first, it seemed as though he might be right.

Then strange things started to happen. Abusive boyfriends tripped down flights of stairs. Women who brought rancid men within the walls of the building soon found their food doing the same. People who threw loud parties during the week and after midnight found places where the beer didn't spoil and the guests didn't wake-up smelling like they had been pissed on by an angry cat. Those who made a habit of not paying their rent simply found themselves evicted.

With a steady income, Sarah made necessary improvements and the window sills of the neighborhood began to blossom with colorful flowers and cooking herbs. A few of the more superstitious left out milk and cookies, and when it was gone in the morning and a man who beat his wife ran naked into the night screaming about goblins, so did a few more.

And thus did the Lady of the Labyrinth watch over her kingdom.

From the bus stop at the park on 15th to the bridge at the river's edge up to a handful of warehouses being converted into artist-friendly flats and down to six slowly dying stripper bars. There had been a seventh until a week ago and Sarah stopped to smile as she watched the construction crew clearing away the wreckage. According to rumor, a gas main had exploded. Firefighters had been shocked to find two dozen underage girls huddled safely in the backyard in various states of traumatized. At least six were in the country illegally, and none were there voluntarily.

She wondered sometimes if she was turning into a goblin herself, but she could not honestly say she had regrets.

Her Master's allowed her to research the oldest libraries for myths, legends, and rumors. It was one of those legends that had given her the idea to use salt to bind the Sidhe who seemed determined to come after her. She had refused more than one offer by men who cajoled and smiled and promised her the moon. She had laughed and asked if they meant to hang it around her neck like a pendant. Most accepted her refusals with varying levels of grace. A few did not.

That was when she discovered just how dangerous an angry goblin could be.

And she rediscovered the power of wishes.

There were rules of course. She had to know exactly what she wanted or it didn't work properly. Sometimes not at all. She had taken the time to practice her visualization and determination after the first couple of wishes failed when she needed them. Binding them to salt seemed to work best for defensive wishes.

She was turning away from the construction site when a pop and a ripple of magic had her spinning defensively. She heard the goblins screech and reached - too slow - for her pocket. She heard him whisper something and wondered dazedly why no one seemed to notice she was falling. Then she was terrified for more than herself, because she could no longer hear the goblins.

Unaware her eyes had taken on a tinge of red, she snarled at the man who came to stand beside her. He had a length of wood pointed at her and she looked into eyes blacker than the nastiest oubliette. She felt words gather in her throat and they vibrated angrily, causing a feeling of nausea as the world slowly turned on its axis. Something flickered in the man's eyes, then light flared from the stick and she felt the world fall away beneath her.


	5. Chapter 5

It was just the shock, Severus told himself.

As he placed the girl on her own sofa, having spent a the better part of hour getting through her wards, he willed his heart to stop racing. It was the eyes, he decided. The shock of seeing green eyes turn red.

There was some sort of alcohol in a delicate crystal decanter near the stove. He transfigured a shot glass and downed a double without tasting it. It burned a path through the cold that had seized his chest and he was reaching for another when he noticed his hand was shaking.

"That could have gone better, old man,"he muttered caustically.

He had panicked.

He'd seen her eyes, felt his world start to crumble, and he'd panicked. He was not certain he believed Jareth about the power of words alone, but in that moment, he had not been prepared to take chances. Not when the Goblin King had been explicitly clear that he would not be able to stop her if she lost control.

Seems the little witch had bound the Goblin King with something stronger than salt.

Severus felt no inclination to laughter at the moment.

Instead, he felt for the crystal Jareth had given him, and pulled a chair into her line of sight, and waited. The bogles were massing in the hallway and inside the walls. He could feel them pressing against his wards, searching with animal hunger for the slightest weakness. If he faltered, if he gave them the tiniest opportunity, he would not have to worry about Azkaban. He shuddered as they slid and squirmed their way closer.

An eternity later her eyelids flickered.

He did not give her a chance to react. He dashed the crystal at his feet and watched emotionless as magic billowed from the shards. It twisted and stretched, taking on the form and features of the Goblin King. Severus could not even begin to guess how he had accomplished such a thing. A visual Howler of some sort, obviously. But how had he rooted it in crystal?

"Sarah,"the Goblin King chided softly,"you are going to get yourself into trouble going on like this."

Miss Williams narrowed her eyes, then sniffed disparagingly.

Jareth grinned maliciously. "I bring you...a gift."

Severus watched the girl raise an eyebrow at that statement. Nor was he certain what the gift was supposed to be. Nothing had been given to him to bring to her. Just the crystal.

"Take care of it, my love. I fear it has been badly mistreated of late. However, even a damaged Alchemist is better than nothing, especially for someone in your position my girl. You always did have to take things just that one step further."

The girl just rolled her eyes at his aggrieved tone and Severus was fairly certain she would have similar feelings about her 'gift'.

The Goblin King straightened his shoulders and stared out at her, expression deadly serious. " He is here to train you properly, Sarah. It will seem strange to you, but you must learn what he has to teach. You are dancing on the edge of a cliff with the way you have been going about things, and I will not be there to catch you if you fall. Please allow that I have the interests of both our worlds at heart when I ask you to refrain from wishing - at least until we can speak further."

The girl seemed oddly perplexed by what seemed a fairly straightforward request. Nor was Severus completely certain what to make of Jareth. He was clearly older than the girl, yet did not speak to her as if he were her father. If she were as dangerous as Jareth seemed to think, Severus would have had no compunction in forcing her to obey. Jareth was acting as if she had every right to destroy the world, if she wished.

For a man who had offered his life to prevent such an occurrence, it was not a happy realization.

The girl had shifted until she was sitting in the sofa, her elbows on her knees, eyes intent on the image of the Goblin King. The bogles had fallen silent in the walls, and were listening with her.

The image seemed to shift uneasily for a moment, then Jareth raised his head and stared down his nose at her with all the arrogance Severus had ever seen Lucius muster.

"As I was uncertain what financial straits you have fallen into, and you will require certain items in order to progress with your studies, I have made arrangements with the banking institution of the Milesian world. While the magical powers you now possess are due entirely to your own actions, and I don't doubt you would be content with substandard equipment if only to spite me, certain of my subjects feel that I am partially to blame for the situation. For that reason, and that reason only, I trust you can put aside your pride long enough to accept adequate funds from me, at least until we are certain you have learned enough to keep from destroying that playground you are pleased to call a kingdom."

Severus blinked, stunned that anyone would deliberately pack so many insults into thirty seconds unless their intention was war.

The girl exploded.

"That son-of-a-bitch. Damn it. Pride? I'll pride you, you pompous... Arrogant. Oversexed. PEACOCK.. Certain of your subjects? Ha! Bet you got called on the carpet for that one. Adequate. I'll show you adequate. I'll damn well bankrupt you, you...arrgh!"

She flopped back down on the sofa and glared at the carpet that was now empty of image and broken crystal. She transferred her glare to Severus who felt his heart flip over uncomfortably at the passion blazing in green eyes. She snarled, then her eyes narrowed.

" He did that on purpose."

Severus grimaced. "Obviously."

"Manipulative bastard,"she muttered.

Severus, for once, kept his mouth shut. Making angry witches angrier had never been difficult. Calming them down, on the other hand, was not a skill he had mastered. He doubted she would appreciate his opinion.

Several bogles crept into the flat when he lowered the wards and crawled onto the sofa with her. They pressed against her making odd noises of distress, and she reached out to pull one of them into her lap as she continued to glare at the floor. More of them spilled into the apartment until he looked around, shocked to see there must have been at least six dozen of them.

_**Six dozen.**_

And the building was still standing.

Her anger faded suddenly. Leaking away along with the tension in her body. He was startled to see fear in her eyes when she finally consented to look at him.

"This is serious, isn't it?" she asked in a small voice.

Severus sighed. "What isn't, these days?" he asked bitterly.


	6. Chapter 6

There were gifts, and then there were gifts.

She would have to make certain the Goblin King knew just how _grateful_ she was for this one.

The surly beast Jareth had called an Alchemist had resisted all attempts at common courtesy, making simple conversation, and any attempt whatsoever at discovering just what the hell was going on. Other than the fact he preferred to be called a Potions Master and that he was a wizard, not a Milesian, about the only thing she knew about him was his name and that the stick he'd pointed at her was - appropriately enough - a wand.

He had spent the last six hours writing letter after letter while owls whipped through her windows and ate all the biscuits. She had stared at them suspiciously, but none of them had done more than give her a supercilious glance before snatching the latest letter in Snape's hand and disappearing back out the window. The goblins had snatched at their tail feathers until Snape had roared at her to get them under control or he would.

She had been tempted - oh so tempted - to tell them to dump him in the Bog, but decided for the moment, she would put up with him. She had seen Jareth be many things during her thirteen hours in the Labyrinth. This was the first time she had ever seen him frightened. And he had been frightened. Of what, she couldn't say. But it was enough to make her cautious for the time being.

She sent the goblins hunting in the park without her, and went to pack.

He hadn't said they were leaving, but she didn't doubt they were going somewhere. He'd glanced at her feet while writing one of his letters and muttered something about getting her a good pair of boots when they picked out her wand. Truthfully, the last statement had sent a small thrill up her spine, and much as she hated to think she was doing anything His Royal Pain-in-the-Arse wanted, she couldn't help feeling she was about to step into another adventure.

And she already had a good pair of boots.

Her first birthday after running the Labyrinth, she had come upstairs after cake and ice cream to find a small, elaborately wrapped present on her night table. Just turned sixteen, she had been half-terrified, half disappointed when nobody stepped out of the shadows when she touched it. The paper had fallen away and she had opened the box breathlessly...only to stare in disappointment at the necklace inside.

It had been exquisite. Delicate silver and a smattering of diamonds. Expensive...and ordinary. She had sat for an hour, staring at it and wondering why she was crying. It had just seemed so wrong, that someone like him should give her jewelery. Jewelery was for someone like her mother. Someone like Karen. Not someone like her. Surely he knew that. If she couldn't be bribed with her dreams, what made him think she could be bought?

She had shoved the necklace into her jewelery box, with all the other junk and and plastic, and never looked at it again. The next year, it had been a scandalous creation of silk and ribbon that had made her blush just to look at it. Then she'd held it up and paled as the indecent nature of the garment was revealed. That gift had scared her more than a little, because even at seventeen, she'd known it signified lust more than respect. It was still lying somewhere in the bottom of a box in her parents' attic. The expensive perfume on her eighteenth birthday was flung out the window.

Her nineteenth birthday, she had been homesick and lonely and there had been no box in her bedroom for her to wonder about. Hoggle had seemed especially upset when she cried all over him. The next year, the gifts had started again, and they had changed.

The first had been a Goblin-made Pouch-of-Many-Pockets. It looked like an ordinary backpack, for an ordinary girl, and the main compartment was perfectly useful for carrying her books and pencils. But it was the pockets that made it a wonder. There were ten in all, and they were perfect for the traveling woman. There was a pocket for food that never spoiled. And a pocket she could cram with clothes that never wrinkled. Another for books and one for weapons and another for anything she could think to pack. If there was a limit to what she could store, she had yet to find it. All she had to do was touch the pocket and then what she wanted, and in it went. It never grew heavier and she could always find what she needed just by thinking about it and putting in her hand.

Hoggle had eyed her strangely when she hugged it, then smiled sadly and never did say why.

The following year, she'd met her first Sidhe -other than Jareth- and her gift that year was a pair of matching cold iron daggers. The year after that it was a cloak that merged with the shadows and always kept her warm and dry no matter the weather. Her twenty-third birthday was the year she started using her wishes seriously and her gift was a dainty tea set and an endless supply of tea that always made her feel energized after she'd called on the magic. Her twenty-fourth birthday was the year she bought her building. She had ripped her skin open more than once doing household repairs, and she had truly been grateful for her birthday that year. He'd sent her gloves, boots, and three pairs of pants that never ripped, never stained, and resisted everything from water to oil to fire.

Last year, he'd given her the shirts to match and a set of armor.

The shirts alone had pleased her, but the armor had made her cry.

All of it went into the Pouch, except for the boots. Those she pulled on after changing into a black jumper and blue jeans. She left messages for the school that she was taking a leave of absence and made arrangements for Mike downstairs to collect the rents. He'd been hinting after exchanging free rent for a caretaker's position, so he was happy to agree. After packing her purse, her phone, and her laptop, she added several changes of clothes, then stood looking around her bedroom feeling a little lost.

Surely there were other things she needed to take? Things that meant something to her. But there did not seem to be anything left. All the books she might miss were already packed in her Pouch, and had been for several years. She'd left her toys behind for Toby, and she had not needed her costumes for a long time now. She stood there a little longer, then grabbed an album and the three framed photos on her desk and closed the door behind her.

* * *

Severus looked up as he heard the door and wondered irritably if the girl was over her sulk.

A cautious owl to Lucius had revealed that all three Malfoys had survived and so had Potter and his little friends. Severus had just sat there, uncertain how he felt about that turn of events. He had been so sure...

Apparently, Potter had reacted in true Gryffindor fashion and stormed the Ministry on Severus's behalf. The Order, mostly due to embarrassment according to Lucius, had rallied behind him and the new Minister had signed a blanket pardon only the day before. Severus wondered what the reaction would be when they realized their posthumous generosity was not so posthumous after all.

Gringott's, predictably, had refused to issue any funds until Miss Williams presented herself at the bank. Lucius had sent him a small sum, enough to cover rooms and food at the Leaky Cauldron until he could determine just how much money Jareth had made available for this misadventure. His own funds had been seized by the Ministry and would likely take months - if not years - to be refunded, and Minerva had refused to answer his owl.

That last had hurt more than he had expected.

Lucius confirmed that she was alive and in charge of the school. They were still assessing the damage and making plans to rebuild. Severus knew she was busy. But he also knew she had loved Albus like a daughter and would not be inclined to forgive either of them for their actions. Both of them had regretted the necessity, but had assumed they would be too dead to care. For his part, he couldn't claim he loved her exactly, but she had been there, a stern example of feminine determination for almost his entire life.

He rather thought he might miss her, if she refused to forgive him.

And speaking of feminine determination...

Given the number of bogles in the room, he hadn't actually noticed what she was doing. He looked up to find the refrigerator door open and his reluctant student stuffing most of the easily eaten perishables into her backpack. The goblins were laying claim to the rest, and he sneered as they squabbled among themselves, getting most of it on themselves and the floor.

"That is disgusting,"he stated flatly.

She shrugged. "They'll clean it up once they've had their fun."

"They can't go."

She placed a sandwich very carefully on the counter. "I wasn't planning on taking all of them."

The bogle next to her looked longingly at the sandwich, but didn't make a move toward it.

"Miss Williams,"Severus managed, hanging onto his temper by a thread,"where we are going, polite people don't bring bogles."

She smirked. "They'll only follow me anyway. At least if I pick, I have control over who goes."

He opened his mouth to tell her exactly what he'd do to any bogle dumb enough to challenge him, when he abruptly reconsidered just how many of them there were. He eyed them uneasily, wondering if he actually had the ability to banish that many bogles. Especially...

...especially since the ones he'd banished earlier appeared to have returned.

She seemed to take his silence for victory and closed the refrigerator door. Before she could waste more time, he Evanesco'd everything - the trash, the empty bottles and containers, not to mention several yards of tin foil - to the nearest landfill. While she stood there gaping at the sparkling counter, he gestured toward her bedroom.

"Take only what you need for a few days. I can bring us back later once we've settled in."

Once he'd figured out where the hell they were going to stay.

It was for damn sure they couldn't stay here. He needed better wards than he could establish here if he was going to teach her properly. If he was forced to it, he would beg hospitality from Lucius, but he would prefer not to go that route.

Luckily, if he was any judge, Miss Williams was a Gryffindor through and through. All he needed was the Sorting Hat to agree with him. The chance to rescue a lost female cub - and a Muggleborn at that - would be nigh irresistible to Minerva after seeing too many of her charges fall on the battlefield.

Even if she did hate his guts at the moment.

"I'm ready now,"she said quietly, and it took a minute for what she said to sink in. She stepped away from the counter, shouldering her backpack as she went, and he caught the familiar flash of dragonhide from the edge of his vision.

He dropped his gaze and felt his eyes widen at the distinctive green-black shimmer wrapped around her lower legs. The boots hugged her legs the way the best custom boots did, and were flat-laced from her ankles all the way to her knees. He hadn't seen that much dragonhide in a single pair of boots since Lucius celebrated his seventeenth birthday. And never Hebridian Green.

There was also something about the pattern of the laces he thought he should recall, but he could not remember what.

The boots gave new meaning to the backpack she had slung over her shoulder and he reminded himself to have her show him what she carried later. He did not relish finding out the hard way if she owned anything marked with Dark magic. He had a feeling the Aurory would be highly unsympathetic.

"Pick your bogles, Miss Williams,"he said, glancing at the clock.

He wanted to arrive well before the dinner crowd.

He could only assume she had already given them instructions as six bogles silently moved to surround her. The others fell back unhappily and watched him with the promise of violence in their eyes as he pulled his wand. He just sighed and wondered how, by Merlin, he got himself into these situations. Bogles, of all things.

Minerva was going to be horrified.


	7. Chapter 7

Sarah decided she didn't much like the Leaky Cauldron. The proprietor's attempt to bar the goblins had been successfully overcome with a single glare from her companion, and really, she had no problems with his concerns. Goblins would unsettled any innkeeper.

It was the lack of magic.

There were spells a plenty. Floating trays, self-cleaning dishes, and tired waiters absently using wands to clear the tables and straighten chairs. But there was no magic. No joy in the hidden world of the unseen. Just weary travelers and clothing that had no sparkle or mystery to it. Nothing at all.

'What a disappointment' a mental voice drawled, in the Goblin King's lazy accent.

And it was.

"Where are the fairies? Or the dwarfs? And...well...everybody?" she hissed.

Snape started to curl his lip, but before he could respond, a voice behind her spoke up.

"Oh, you won't find none of that riff-raff in here, mum," it said reassuringly.

She turned, wondering how the speaker could have missed the goblins hanging off her shoulders, and found various magic users eying her with condescending expressions. She arched an eyebrow imperiously and straightened her spine in best Goblin King fashion.

"How...civilized, of you,"she drawled, her tone indicating that she thought nothing of the sort.

Snape inhaled sharply, but if he had intended to say anything, he changed his mind. When she looked at him, his expression was impassive and his eyes neutral. Instead, he turned with a snap of his cloak - a rather impressive feat given the lack of space and the fact he didn't hit anyone with it - and rapped several bricks with his wand. Her eyes widened with delight as the wall pulled apart to reveal Wonderland.

Snape bowed sarcastically, and waved her forward when she didn't move fast enough for his liking.

* * *

There was going to be hell to pay when word of this reached Minerva.

Over the girl's shoulder, he could see Tom smirking at him. The innkeeper let his eyes drop to her backside, and his leer deepened briefly, disappearing only when Severus did not return the expression. Severus had never brought a woman with him to the Leaky Cauldron. To bring one now, and one so clearly of Muggle origins would have the most addle-pated of them thinking she was his secret lover and determined to see his spying as the romantic twaddle of a love-struck idiot. Which, sadly, was not totally inaccurate, but Miss Williams was not the witch in question.

Minerva was going to choke on a fur ball, see if she didn't.

Although, that might actually be amusing to watch.

He finally had to plant a hand in the middle of her back and shove her though the doorway. She glared at him with typical Gryffindor fire, then abandoned him to gaze in delight at the chaos around them.

"This is wonderful!"she crowed, throwing out her arms and spinning twice in place.

"I'd resist doing that unless you want to accidentally splinch yourself,"he said dryly.

Most of the students were under the impression a wizard needed a wand in order to Apparate, and for the most part, that belief made it easier for most of them to successfully do so. However, with the girl's penchant for wandless magic, he preferred not to take any chances.

The goblins were jumping about, shouting at each other in gleeful tones, but seemed moderately content to remain with their keeper. Not certain how long she could keep them under control, he decided their first stop had best be the bank. He doubted that real goblins would have any tolerance for bogles. Indeed, as they came within the imposing shadow of the bank, the bogles all came to a dead stop and stared in wide-eyed horror at the building.

Miss Williams gave them a puzzled look, then sighed and shrugged off her backpack. She ripped open one of the pockets and held it out to them.

"Here,"she said reassuringly.

The bogles didn't hesitate. One by one they ran for her backpack, disappearing inside without so much as a squeak of resistance. Severus would have been more impressed if he hadn't seen Miss Granger's ingenious Bottomless Bag. A very nice adaptation of the Room Extension charm, that had been.

With her backpack back in place, Miss Williams looked like any other Muggle University student who just happened to be wearing dragonhide boots and a stubborn little bogle clinging to her shoulder and hiding under her hair.

Not to mention the ex-Death Eater at her side.

It was a wonder the Aurors hadn't been called out yet. Severus had no doubts that he had been recognized. The gazes had been a bit too wide, and had dropped too quickly to be otherwise. Still, no one had tried to hex him yet. Now if only that state of affairs would continue long enough for him to register Miss Williams as his apprentice, her safety from the Ministry would be temporarily assured.


	8. Chapter 8

Gringott's Bank did not like wizard-kind.

In fact, if the emotion Sarah sensed was any indication, that building hated them. It loomed over Diagon Alley, seething like an angry dragon, waiting to pounce. That the wizards around her seemed oblivious to the predator in their midst made her question their judgment more than a little.

"I really don't want to go in there,"she said courteously.

"You really don't have a choice,"Snape said irritably.

Pip was muttering under his breath and she could feel his tiny body shaking against her neck. Why he didn't just hide in her backpack with the rest of them she didn't know. She finally realized he was chanting 'dagger, dagger' over and over again.

It wasn't a bad idea.

Snape growled at her for the delay, but she immediately felt better when they were attached to her wrists, hidden under the arms of her jumper. Cold iron didn't affect Goblins much, but the weapons were very very sharp.

"Forward, my good Sir,"she said dramatically. "With a wish in our pockets and dreams in our hearts."

Snape just snorted.

She imagined herself laced safely into her armor and headed for the doors with all the bravery she could muster. Which wasn't much considering that she doubted these particular fiends could be overcome with courage and the threat of Pip biting off their balls. Still, one did what one was required to do.

She crashed through the doors and was immediately embarrassed when they slammed into the walls behind them, a double boom echoing through the hushed silence of the building. Witches eyed her disapprovingly, wizards eyed her jeans with interest, and the goblins stared at her, apparently appalled by her manners.

Snape caught the door against his palm as it slowly swung toward him.

"Okay,"she mumbled,"that didn't go so well."

"Just go get your money,"Snape said with a sigh.

Holding her head high, she forced herself to walk calmly across the wide expanse of marble and took her place at the end of the line. It moved slowly, and she-along with the others in line – watched curiously as Snape spoke quietly to an older goblin who glanced once at Sarah, then nodded and offered him a parchment to sign.

There was a murmur from the line as a single gold coin was handed to the goblin and several people turned to look at Sarah with speculation. She ignored them as best she could and looked longingly at the front of the line.

Observing that people simply walked up to an open wicket and stated their business, she did the same when it was her turn – only to stand dumbfounded when the goblin ignored her. She turned to look at Snape, who was frowning at the goblin, so it couldn't be something she was doing wrong.

"Excuse me?"she tried again, keeping a rein on her temper,"Jareth said I was to speak to you."

Still nothing, and her face began to burn as a few twitters in the line behind her carried clearly across the floor. Snape started toward her only to pull up sharply when the two guards at the door turned toward him in warning.

Sarah was beginning to think something more significant than her accidental storming of the gates was occurring. A few of those Sidhe males had let things slip over the years. Combined with various comments made by Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and the goblins themselves, she had a shaky picture of Underground politics and Jareth's position in it.

She wasn't quite certain of her place in the scheme of things, but was certain it had something to do with the Labyrinth. Hoggle had been a bit too uneasy when he told her that her suitors were just trying to stir up trouble. Given that most of the Goblin Kingdoms non-goblin inhabitants were refugees from persecution of one sort or another, Sarah's loyalties tended toward Jareth.

He might be a rat, but he was an egalitarian rat.

Now here, in a place where her own goblins were scared to go, Jareth's name was being ignored. It was a challenge in any language. She just didn't know the rules. Running to Jareth was not an option, even if it hadn't been a point of pride. Nor was Snape going to be much use. Courtesy had not worked and it was too soon and she was too outnumbered for violence. Which left patience.

Not exactly her strong suit.

Widening her stance, she crossed her arms in her most imperious manner and stared at the goblin behind the counter. And stared.

And stared.

His lip curled. Then his ear twitched. Then his lip curled while his ear twitched and she continued staring. She blocked out everything around her, until all she could see was the goblin and found herself reaching mental fingers for a wish. It rose in her mind, deadly in its simplicity, and she ached to whisper it aloud.

The only thing that held her back, was Jareth.

He had not ordered. He had not courted defiance. He asked, and for once, that bound her more strongly than magic. If the Goblin King was asking, it was too important to say any other way.

She lost track of how long she stood there.

When the doors slammed shut and she looked around, the only wizard left in the building was Snape. All the other wickets were closed, and her particular goblin had finally lifted his head. They stood there, and she noted in passing that his eyes were tinged with red.

"Do you deny your King?"she asked dangerously.

"Who are you to ask?"he sneered, and wicked laughter passed down the hall, leaping from goblin to goblin as they crept closer, filling the room.

She considered the question carefully.

Who was she to ask?

The Lady of the Labyrinth had no power here. Nor did a witch or human girl. So who was she, and why were they waiting for an answer? If she turned away, if she walked away, what did that do to Jareth?

Goblins who came to her call.

Goblin armor and dragonhide and weapons.

Goblin dreams and an offer that was still on the table.

She knew. She had always known, beneath the fear, and the distance, and the time she had needed to find herself. But she was no longer afraid. At least, not in a way where ignorance and denial provided safety.

She smiled, and although she didn't know it, her eyes glowed red.

"I'm the Goblin Queen."


	9. Chapter 9

His mother always said his obsession with mortals would get him killed.

A pity she said it with satisfaction instead of regret.

Still, one must be prepared to admit one's parents knew what they were talking about. Occasionally. Under extreme duress. Especially when the Labyrinth scooped him up and tossed him bare-arsed into the Above without so much as a by-your-leave.

Thankfully, his instincts were more awake than he was.

He twisted, getting his feet beneath him, just in time to hit slick marble with bare feet. The hiss of a dagger warned him, and he dropped flat and watched as a weapon of cold iron skimmed past his shoulder and skittered across the floor.

He would have reached for his armor, but a quick glance upward revealed Sarah's flabbergasted face ringed about by nearly 100 blood-thirsty goblins.

"They just tried to kill you,"she stated, looking delightfully bewildered.

"It does appear that way, "he agreed regretfully. He climbed carefully to his feet.

It would have been nice if the first time he saw her in ten years, he was wearing something more...heroic. It would be a hell of a way to die, stark naked and -yes – visibly showing evidence of the cold.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, keeping a wary eye on the goblins. "Sarah, you have a positive gift for saying the right thing at the wrong time."

He ducked a thrown hand-ax and grabbed her shoulder when she turned toward the thrower.

"Ah! Not just yet, if you please."

An elderly goblin, related to Bluart the Bloodthirsty if Jareth was not mistaken, thumped a spear tipped with cold iron against the floor impatiently.

"She declared herself your Queen, Your Majesty. We accept the Challenge." the old goblin declared loudly.

Jareth snorted. Of course they did. Bloodthirsty little chaps had been chomping at the bit for the last forty years or so. How many times had he told them...timing was everything. And Sarah...what could possibly have possessed her to declare herself his Queen this early in the game? It should have taken her another ten years to come to the correct conclusion. He'd rather expected he would be obliged to chase her halfway across the continent once that happened.

"I wasn't wrong, was I?"she asked hesitantly. "I mean, I thought – the gifts and all..."

He frowned and followed her unhelpful hand waving to the pack on her shoulder and then down to her boots. Jareth narrowed his eyes.

"Those gifts wouldn't include a rather nice set of Goblin armor, would they?" he asked grimly, and she nodded.

It appeared he and Higgle would be having a little chat in the near future.

He dodged another thrown dagger, and glared at the impudent bastard who couldn't be bothered to wait another ten minutes before trying to eviscerate his King. The goblin grinned broadly, exposing recently sharpened teeth.

"I liked them,"she said stiffly.

"You were intended to like them,"he said shortly."And you were absolutely correct in your conclusions. This was however, a less than ideal time for you to exert your claim. Dare I ask what set your temper flaring?"

Sarah flushed and mumbled something.

Jareth raised an eyebrow. "Pardon? I didn't catch that. I assume it includes adequate reasoning for why I am standing weaponless in the Above and facing goblins armed with cold iron."

Sarah lifted her head. "They were ignoring me."

Jareth waited for the other half of the explanation. And waited.

"I trust there was more?"he asked finally, placing his hand on his hip in frustration. Not the least of his anger was due to his acute awareness of how ridiculous he looked. A song for the ages, certainly, he thought with disgust.

"Well they're your goblins,"she snapped." And you _told_ me to come here and they ignored me. You're the King. They aren't supposed to ignore you. Or me. Or what the hell are you still standing there like that for? Put some god-damn clothes on, for the love of..."

Her voice was rising with her frustration and the goblins around her were starting to growl. Jareth eyed them warily and decided it didn't matter what her reasoning was. It was his own fault. He could have found some way to warn her. He just hadn't expected...

"One day, Sarah,"he sighed, then smirked. "You were here in this world one day. Your temper will be the death of me yet."

On the other hand...

"You have Challenged for your title and the Goblins have accepted. Be thankful,"he said grimly,"they could have chosen to execute you on the spot. You have claimed the title of Goblin Queen. Now you have to defend it."

Sarah paled.

"I had expected to have another ten years to train you,"he said. "Now? Now you must trust me. Listen carefully, Sarah. The King rules, but the Queen rides."

"Rides what?"she asked, a bit dazedly.

He started to grin, then reconsidered the folly of answering that question the way he wanted to. He coughed. "I'll explain later. For now, just listen. I cannot fight. I can share my magic only to heal you, and I can share my skill in battle, but you have to accept that gift. Waver, or hesitate, and both of us will die."

She looked up at him, seemingly unaware as he twisted his hand and the Labyrinth clothed her in her Goblin armor. That, at least, was acceptable.

"There's no other way?"

He looked down at her and knew he'd never tell her that he was free to leave. But only if he rejected her claim. Did he do so, she'd live only long enough to scream.

She had enough trouble trusting him, to learn that truth today.

He called on the labyrinth and the goblins around them shrieked with blood lust and anticipation as a double-headed ax appeared in her gloved hand.

He looked into her eyes and wondered if she had it in her to trust him enough for either of them to survive. "We will fight to disable. The choices are yours, but let my knowledge guide you. And don't worry about where I'm standing."

"Why not?"she asked, green-eyes worried.

He smirked. "Because I'll be taking shelter behind you. Now..." he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face the gathering horde.

"Defend your King."


	10. Chapter 10

Severus Snape knew what everyone knew about Gringott's goblins.

Don't piss them off.

He wasn't sure how that applied however, when naked wizards started falling from the sky. Especially when the wizard in question was quite possibly the estranged husband of his new, duly witnessed apprentice, and Severus Snape was now considered legally and financially responsible for any and all magical damages incurred by said apprentice.

"The Queen rides!" the goblin beside him screamed, furiously waving something in the air that might have been a weapon – or possibly a Muggle stapler.

Severus glared.

"Do you mind?" he snapped, as the banker in a buttoned down vest who had taken his Galleon and professionally – if not particularly courteously - witnessed his signature, rocked anxiously from foot to foot on top of his desk, nearly clipping Severus in the head with whatever the hell it was he was holding.

The two heavily armed guards who had attached themselves to him when Miss Williams first started grandstanding - in fine Gryffindor fashion - gave him warning glares, then went back to thumping the butt ends of their spears on polished marble. Lucius would have had a heart attack at that disrespectful abuse of fine architecture.

Then again...

Severus eyed the wild-eyed goblins baring claws and pulling weapons with finely honed edges from inside their desks.

Lucius had also considered the Dark Revels to be extremely uncivilized.

It wasn't until Miss Williams shimmered, then reappeared fully clothed in dark armor that looked suspiciously like something dreamed up by Beedle the Bard, that Severus remembered what the hell it was he had forgotten about the laces on her boots. It was an ancient lacing technique, used to cushion the armor covering the lower legs of riders going into battle. He had even seen an example of it, at the wizarding British Museum of London.

The goblin-made armor rumored to have been worn by Morgan la Fay.

The rising blood lust of the goblins crowding closer to his apprentice as she argued with her blond lunatic was beginning to get on his nerves. He stared coldly at those nearest to him, debating weaknesses as they ignored him to focus on the drama on the other side of the hall.

Miss Williams had brought this on herself.

If she survived, he would be sure to point that out.

He leaned back in his chair and studied the way she held the double-bladed ax in her hands. Not an executioner's blade, he mused. Definitely a battlefield weapon, with a four foot handle to extend the reach of the fighter on the ground. A hand-to-hand weapon, he judged, rather than one designed to be used from horseback. And something she clearly had never used before.

Gringott's had increased their security after the attempted theft of the Philosopher's Stone. Severus wasn't certain how Jareth had been brought through the Anti-Apparation wards, but Severus could sense them, woven into the very fabric of the walls. He wasn't going anywhere, unless the goblins let him. And Dark magic, under this roof, would be a very bad idea.

He wasn't sure what he expected from Jareth.

This all had the feeling of ceremony, beneath the screaming and the red-tinged eyes.

He was moderately surprised when the man made no attempt to clothe himself in armor. He was perplexed when Jareth didn't reached for any of the discarded weapons lying about on the floor. He was – admittedly – shocked when the self-styled king turned Miss Williams toward the gathering goblins and stepped into her shadow.

The first attack was tentative. A mere testing of her defenses, and Severus watched as she fumbled against the recoil and nearly dropped her weapon. As she turned to meet the next attack, Jareth moved smoothly with her, keeping her body between his and the attacker, even as he watched for attacks from behind. At first, Severus thought it was strategy, until she looked in the wrong direction and Jareth physically swung her around in time to use her body to intercept a thrown knife.

The blade rang against armor and Severus stared at it for a long moment as it clattered to the floor.

Then he looked back at Jareth, and reconsidered the personal odds of survival of one Severus Snape.

Jareth whispered something to her, and when she turned to look at him, her eyes went strangely blank the moment he touched her face. When the next blade flew through the air, Jareth saw it, but it was Miss Williams who spun and knocked it out of the air. Severus blinked, and watched as she stood for a moment, looking at it with an expression of shock on her face.

Then Jareth moved, and she moved with him.

For a moment, it seemed as if she would follow him. Then a goblin stepped too close and as she swung the ax, Jareth ceded the dance to her. There was a crack and the goblin flew through the air, slamming into a metal wicket and bringing it down. Severus eyed the damage and curled his lip.

He was not paying for that.

As if that were the signal the goblins had been waiting for, the screams around them doubled in intensity and they leaped to attack. Miss Williams spun the ax and started using her height to advantage. Goblins wailed and shrieked as blood started to grease the floor and when next he saw her eyes, the green had completely vanished, swallowed by malevolent red.

Jareth laughed.

Wild. Exhultant. Victorious.

He was a blond shadow, echoing her moves, pale skin burning against dark armor and dark goblin hide. They merged, as her movement became more confident. As if every time he touched her, every time a wound or bruise mended itself, she remembered one more skill she had forgotten and the ax blurred in her hands.

Severus wasn't certain when they stopped testing her defenses.

He just saw the moment they hesitated, then turned on Jareth in truth.

They were really trying to kill him, Severus thought. Then he wondered at his own ability to be surprised. What had seemed like ritual was abandoned, and Jareth let them do it. He never reached for magic. He slipped instead, behind Miss Williams, and forced her to take the blows. Used her to block knives he could have ducked. Retreated into her shadow where the goblins couldn't reach him or the pale skin that remained unmarked. Unbloodied. He knowingly let her step into an attack he could have prevented.

And Miss Williams, damn her Gryffindor pride, let him use her.

And Severus, being Slytherin, watched her pay the price.

She faltered. Hours, minutes, days later. Severus no longer knew. Jareth had stopped healing her wounds, concentrating only on staying behind her, and then she faltered. Over-extended on the follow-through that sent one goblin to his knees and cleared a path for another straight to Jareth's throat. The would-be King stood there, utterly exposed, and watched death approach with hooded eyes and a strange smile on his face.

Then Sarah was down, crashing first into Jareth, then falling to the floor with a thud. Severus stared at her body, stared at the blood slowly dripping to polished marble, and wondered when it had gotten so quiet. He rose carefully to his feet, waiting for the howling to start. For the screaming, and the tearing, and wondered what they would do if he just turned and tried to walk away.

Then a sigh swept the hall and Severus watched, bewildered, as every single goblin in the room dropped to one knee. Jareth peeled his lips back from his teeth in a way that wasn't even close to human and regarded them with a haughty confidence and a feral joy that Severus knew to his butchered soul that he did not want to understand.

"The Queen rides,"Jareth said quietly, yet the words rang against the walls and the floor and the ceiling above.

And then he screamed, high and piercing, and launched himself upward, his arms sweeping forward to become wings and he vanished.

The goblins turned toward Severus as he paced slowly forward, uncertain what he would find. The dagger was buried in her shoulder. She had turned at the last minute, taking the blade against her back,and it had missed her heart. Although not her lung, from the sound of it. He would need to get her to Hogwarts, and be damned what Minerva might have to say on the matter.

Miss Williams was his apprentice and St. Mungo's would ask too many questions.

He picked her up and felt a small clawed hand push something into his own. He looked down to see a packet of Floo powder and felt himself being pushed toward a hearth that suddenly shimmered into view on the far wall.

He ignored the way they stared at the woman in his arms. Hungry. Expectant. _Victorious_. Time enough to wonder what he had got himself into later. He tossed the Floo powder into the flames and called out the Hogwart's Infirmary as his destination. Then he stepped into the flames...

...and heard the howling begin, behind him.


	11. Chapter 11

She felt pretty good, for a dead woman.

_"...came sweeping in here with her bleeding in his arms..._

_"No!"_

_"It was ever so romantic."_

_"Snape?"_

The last voice was edged with incredulous disgust. Sarah was momentarily curious about what they were discussing, then decided she had better things to worry about.

She was so dead.

_"...McGonagall said...Gringott's...apprentice..."_

_"No way."_

_"...burst in through the Floo, robes swirling and looking all fierce and protective..."_

_"Snape?"_

Disgust shifted octaves. The voice sounded disturbingly like Pip the day he stuffed his arm through the tape slot of the VCR and accidentally hit the eject button.

Neither Pip nor the VCR had been the same since.

_"...the goblins wouldn't serve her. Whoever heard of a goblin that wouldn't take your money? Daphne said..."_

_"...should be a Ministry inquiry if you ask me..."_

_"...has never had a wand registered? Are you sure?..."_

Sarah groaned as the voices continued and the volume increased. She wondered irritably if she could just wish them all to shut the hell up. It was bad enough that wherever Jareth had stashed her smelled like the bulk spice section of the local supermarket. Jareth might not have to kill her. She'd die of environmental allergies first.

She had never smelled such an over-powering stench of conflicting scents in her life. The bog didn't count. The bog was hideous, but at least it was consistent. This was more like an old lady convention. Rosewater and lilacs and lily of the valley meets sage dressing and lemon floor cleaner. All with a chaser of mildew and spiderwebs.

Regrettably, she didn't think she was hallucinating.

She groaned as a particular shrill burst of laughter stabbed through her eardrums and the voices fell silent. There was a rustle of fabric, and the decisive click of heels on stone coming closer.

"Miss Williams?"

She was suddenly excruciatingly thirsty and she almost cried with relief when a wet cloth was touched to her lips. Desperately, she tried sucking the moisture from the damp fibers and protested when it was pulled away. She was almost ready to reach for a wish when she felt a straw held to her lips and she smelled water. It was luke-warm and tasted of old pipes, but she drank it down until someone pulled it away again.

There were more footsteps, staccato and decisive, and she heard the babble from before, this time with a new voice added.

_"Please inform Master Snape that his apprentice is regaining consciousness. I suspect he'll..."_

_"Yes, Headmistress. Do you want me to..."_

Headmistress?

Sarah tried to peel her eyelids apart, panicking slightly when they wouldn't open. There was a soft murmur and a warm cloth was sponged lightly across her face. Then another murmur and the damp disappeared.

Like magic.

She blinked rapidly and stared as a stern older woman with a drawn face and dark haunted eyes studied her with a weary curiosity. Almost resentful, Sarah thought, and wondered why she should think so. But it was true. The woman looked too tired to be curious about anything, and Sarah rather thought she needed the hospital bed more than Sarah herself. Except for the extreme thirst, Sarah actually felt pretty damn good. This woman looked dead on her feet.

Two more curious faces peered out from behind the woman, younger girls. Teenagers really, with the same haunted eyes as the older woman. But where her curiosity seemed reluctant, their eyes were over bright and almost feverish. As if desperate for anything to hold their attention.

Sarah regarded them warily.

"You are in the Infirmary at Hogwarts, Miss Williams,"the older woman said briskly. "I am Headmistress Minerva McGonagall and Master Snape brought you here three days ago to be treated for magical exhaustion and a knife wound to your upper back."

Sarah blinked, a bit unnerved by how casually the woman accepted such an event. A moment later, she reconsidered at the practiced tone, and wondered if the Headmistress had a lot of experience dealing with unconscious patients waking up in strange places.

"Jareth?" she whispered.

The Headmistress frowned, but before she could speak, there was a commotion across the room and Sarah turned her head to see Snape stride into the room dressed in a white shirt with high laced collar and black pants. She eyed him critically with a practiced eye and decided Jareth still had him beat in the drama queen department. The knee-high boots were an elegant touch however.

"What happened to your robes?"she asked, wondering why the change when he'd spent an hour fussing over the ones he had worn to Diagon Alley.

The Headmistress looked startled as she looked between them and Sarah wondered briefly if it was an impolite question. Snape just curled his lip in a sneer.

"You bled on them,"he said curtly. "And your bogles shredded them when I tried to feed the ungrateful monsters."

The headmistress looked alarmed. "Bogles?"

Snape smirked with evil intent and Sarah decided he'd been spending way too much time with Jareth. A disturbing thought given she didn't want to think too hard about Jareth right now.

Her lack of impulse control was a serious character flaw.

One she would no doubt be hearing about fairly quickly.

"Why yes, Minerva,"Snape said with mock dismay. "Did I forget to mention that my inconvenient apprentice has infested herself with bogles. Voluntarily, I might add,"he said with disgust. Then he glared at Sarah. " You will keep them under control Miss Williams or I will start brewing potions made from bogle parts in order to cover the costs of damages incurred."

"Now see here, Severus,"the Headmistress started aggressively, only to cut herself off when Snape's expression smoothed out and he regarded her steadily with polite courtesy.

The Headmistress flushed, then paled, and Sarah was at a loss as to what emotions flashed across her face then. The two wizards stared at each other, Snape looking mildly disdainful and the Headmistress as if she wanted to push him out a window. Which made it all the more curious when she simply turned sharply on one foot and swept out of the room.

Snape was clearly refusing to look after her, but Sarah noticed two spots of color appear high on his cheekbones.

"Jareth?"she asked him again, after a long moment when nothing else happened except that the two teenagers retreated to a corner of the room to hold a whispered conversation.

"Fine,"Snape said curtly.

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him.

"In this castle, Miss Williams, the walls really do have ears." Snape said with a warning look, then grimaced."And I don't mean those two twits in the corner."

The twits in question paused, then turned to glare at Snape with outrage. Given that Sarah hadn't even realized they could hear any conversation over the babble of their own voices, she felt duly chastened. Snape gave a sardonic bow in the twits' direction.

"Miss Brown. Miss Patel. I was certain I heard you had volunteered to assist Madam Pomfrey with the wounded. Perhaps then you might explain why you are hovering over my apprentice while there is still work to be done?"

His reproof seemed far too mild for the manner in which they paled and practically ran through a wall of white fabric suspended across the Infirmary a few feet from Sarah's bed. It wasn't until the makeshift curtain parted and Sarah was able to catch a glimpse into the room beyond that she realized the infirmary was much larger than her tiny portion of it. Sarah was horrified by the brief sight of row upon row of horribly wounded people behind the curtain.

"The most seriously wounded are at St. Mungo's."

Sarah turned dazed eyes toward Snape, affronted by his derisive tone until she got a good look at his eyes. They were bloodshot and tired, and she realized the front of his shirt was stained with various liquids. He followed her gaze down to his shirt-front and his mouth twisted bitterly.

"The Wizarding World is a small, nearly closed society, Miss Williams,"Snape said, his dry tone at odds with the frustration in his eyes. " St Mungo's is virtually the only trainer and employer of advanced medical staff. Madam Pomfrey is one of the few witches with practical and up-to-date training outside of St Mungo's, and with St. Mungo's being overwhelmed, the Ministry is sending the less wounded here. "

Sarah watched as Snape began to pace angrily.

" We have a handful of Sixth and Seventh Year students trying to brew advanced potions without adequate supervision. We're out of basic medical potions a First-Year could brew but for the fact we're out of supplies and the Ministry is using most of what they can get for the more critical cases at St. Mungo's. The worst part, is that we have almost everything we need in the Forest, but I can't be spared the time to go gather it because I'm spending all my time making certain the students don't poison their patients!"

This Snape was a far cry from the sneering man who had confronted the Headmistress. Perhaps the fact she was his apprentice meant she was expected to help?

"Could the students gather the ingredients?"she asked hesitantly.

Snape just blinked."In the Forest? They'd get eaten in ten minutes."

"You have something that dangerous next to a _school_?" Sarah demanded, appalled.

Snape shrugged.

She debated hitting him with the nearest heavy object she could find. "Fine."she said shortly. "Snap!"

The goblin skittered into the room a few seconds later, gave Snape a dirty look and leapt for the foot of her bed. Snape returned the unfriendly look with one of his own. Sarah grabbed the front of Snap's leather jerkin and yanked him toward her until he was forced to stare into her eyes.

"Have you been exploring?"

Snap grinned, his tongue lolling out happily.

"Have you been in the Forest?"

Snap nodded enthusiastically. "Lots of crunchies. Lots and lots and lots,"he said then gestured in the air. "Snap went their bones! Lots of snap. Lots of crack."

Sarah looked at his belly critically. Lots of snap and crack indeed. "Just how big were these crunchies?"

Snap squished up his face thoughtfully, then shrugged.

"Surely you don't expect me to send bogles after potions ingredients?"Snape asked incredulously.

"They didn't get eaten,"Sarah pointed out.

Snape gaped for a moment, then pinched the bridge of his nose tightly. "As foolish as that sounds, you actually have a point. But I can't send students into the Forest with bogles for protection."

"Can the goblins get what you need?" Sarah asked hopefully. She carefully didn't think about the glimpse she had seen of the room behind the curtain." They're quite good at getting what you want if you can show them a picture."

Snape gave her an odd look, then grabbed a plant off the table next to her bed. He held it out to the goblin.

"Snap, please remove the top three leaves of this plant, carefully, and hand them to Sarah."

Snap squinted at the plant for a long moment, then reached out and yanked the entire plant from its pot and thrust it roots and all into Sarah's hand. Snape actually smirked as she looked at the dirt scattered around her with dismay. Snap bounced happily, then shrunk down and stared at Sarah's face when she didn't respond.

"Lady want flowers?" Snap demanded. "Flowers from Forest filled with crunchies?"

Snape silently pulled his wand from his sleeve and made the dirt disappear. Snap eyed the newly cleaned sheets, and the plant back in it's pot.

"Lady want flowers?"Snap asked again, sounding agitated.

Sarah pushed down her disappointment. It wasn't Snap's fault he couldn't do what she asked. It was just...they had never let her down before. And Snap hadn't let her down this time, she told herself sharply. She was the one at fault for asking him to do something outside his nature.

"It's okay, Snap,"she said softly, patting him on the head. "I don't need anything right now."

Snap's head shot up and his eyes burned red for a second. Then he slid off the bed and disappeared.

Snape eyed the space where the goblin had been for a suspicious minute, then sighed. "Come with me. Now that you are conscious, you might as well make yourself useful."

Sarah peeked under the sheet cautiously, and didn't move. Snape eyed her curiously for a minute, then his eyes dropped to the sheet she was holding to her chest with both hands and he flushed slightly. A wave of a wand later and the sheet had disappeared and she was clothed in comfortable jeans and a white shirt with long sleeves.

She was halfway off the bed when she remembered. "My armor!"

Snape raised a hand and her backpack sailed into it from under her cot. He threw it at her and stalked wordlessly toward the door. Sarah patted and unsealed pockets as she ran after him. The world outside the Infirmary proved to be a maze of stone corridors and mysterious closed doors.

"You will have to explain why I was the only one who could remove that armor from your body."Snape said expressionlessly.

Sarah paused her examination of the backpack. She was happy to see none of her goblins were still trapped inside. Snape really had let them out. She winced. Which meant he probably wasn't lying about the robes either. Hungry goblins were a mite...ornery.

"I don't know,"she said finally."The situation has never come up before. Maybe it has something to do with the fact you are sworn to Jareth."

Snape came to a dead halt and when he whirled around, the look on his face startled her into taking a defensive step backwards.

"Let me make something perfectly clear, Miss Williams,"he said in a deadly tone that made her take another step back. "I am not sworn to anybody. Not Jareth. Not you. Not to anybody, ever again. You are my apprentice by virtue of trade. You will do what I say, when I say, and if ever you feel you cannot abide by those terms, do feel free to plead your case to the Ministry. Of course, they will most likely try to bind your powers and Obliviate you, so you may want to reconsider that impulse unless you are feeling particularly desperate."

Sarah tossed her head, pride and a streak of something she had come to recognize as sheer mule-headed stubbornness coming to the surface. Her time in the Labyrinth hadn't altered that tendency at all. If anything, it had made it worse.

She had learned when it was wise not to provoke one's enemies however.

"I didn't sign anything,"she reminded him. "Just to be clear."

Snape's smile widened a touch. "You didn't need to."

Sarah blinked. "Excuse me?"

Snape tilted his head and smirked. "It's archaic, but a Master has the right to claim any non-adult witch or wizard as his or her apprentice. These days, that's understood to mean under-age, but technically it means any witch or wizard who has not proven that his or her magic is completely under their control."

Sarah sputtered with outrage and Snape crossed his arms and regarded her with apparent amusement. Not the fluffy bunny kind of amusement either. More the sort that pulled the wings off butterflies.

"That's appalling!"

Snape shrugged. "It was rather practical actually. Children were married off quite young in those days, and no Master wants an apprentice with other obligations. Without that right, several very promising children would have been lost to early childbirth and arranged marriages."

Sarah felt her eyes widen in disbelief. "But what if the Master isn't a good person? He could be a pedophile!"

Snape stared at her for so long, she finally snapped an impatient "What?", dropping her hands to her hips.

"I am curious,"Snape said slowly, "why your first thought was for non-existent children, instead of yourself."

Sarah wasn't even tempted to take it as a threat. She snorted. "You aren't the type."

In a flash, Snape had his hand around her throat and was pinning her to the wall. She was startled, but not particularly alarmed when he leaned in. What was it with tall men and the leaning, she wondered irritably.

"I assure you, Miss Williams,"Snape hissed,"there are very few things I haven't done in my quest for power. Overconfidence may be a Gryffindor trait, but I suggest it is one you work to eliminate from your character."

Sarah pushed her head forward and scented carefully along his neck. When she pulled her head back and grinned a goblin grin, his eyes were startled.

"You aren't the type," she said with certainty.

The arm holding her to the wall trembled slightly, then he dropped her.

"You don't know that,"he said flatly.

"Yes,"she said calmly,"I do."

Snape was glaring at her now, his entire body taut with the urge to either strike out or run away. He could go either way at this point she judged critically.

"Your confidence in your own opinion is appalling,"'Snape said, disgusted.

Sarah shrugged. She could no more explain how she knew what she knew than she could explain how she knew to use wishes. "I just know things, some times. Certain things about certain types of people." Then she grinned. "It's in the job description."

Then she hesitated.

"Actually, I may have decided it was in my job description,"she said truthfully.

"Because you are the Goblin Queen?"Snape announced with a frustrated and disparaging flourish of his arms.

Sarah nodded.

"You only claimed that title three days ago, you ridiculous woman."

Oddly, while his voice sounded disdainful, his body posture had shifted. It was barely east of annoyed at the moment. Not happy mind, but no longer screaming at her, or poised to attack.

Sarah shook her head. "No,"she said seriously,"the title has always been mine. I just wasn't ready to claim it."

She was glad he didn't seem to have a response to that, because she didn't know how she knew that fact either. It just was. Or maybe it was just because she had wanted it that way. It didn't really matter, in the end. What was said was said.

"You aren't the type,"she said confidently, and sauntered off in the direction he had been leading her.


	12. Chapter 12

Severus stalked after his new apprentice and wondered how she'd like spending the next twenty-four hours as a flobberworm. He might not be the "type" to enjoy rape, but creative hexes were definitely in his vocabulary. He wasn't sure what annoyed him more. The fact she was right, or her teeth-cracking confidence in her own certainty.

He told himself that the only thing preventing her imminent transformation was caution.

She was -apparently- the Goblin Queen. Slytherin instincts screamed at him to be wary, to gather more information before he took any action that could affect his own ambitions. Since his greatest ambition these days was staying out of Azkaban, hexing his apprentice would have to wait.

Once he had a spare minute, however, he was going to corner Binns.

He felt his stomach twist with the familiar feeling of acid. The same feeling he got every time the Dark Mark called him. Every time he knew damn well something was happening that he could not prevent. It had been safe enough to assume Jareth was simply a deluded wizard living out some Milesian fantasy in an Unplottable castle inhabited by bogles. That was, until every goblin in Gringott's lost their collective minds.

He had failed to notice his apprentice had stopped to wait for him, and he nearly stumbled over her. She gave him a curious glance, then her eyes sharpened as he stood without moving. Her eyebrows raised sharply in a "what now?" expression he wasn't used to seeing directed at himself. Not by women and wizards under the age of one hundred, anyway.

"Why does a ghost become a ghost, Miss Williams?" he asked without thinking, ignoring her quizzical expression.

No one remembered much about the Goblin Wars.

Only Binns, and he'd never said much worth remembering.

Who was Sarah Williams, if he stopped trying to force her into preconceived notions? What did it mean, that a witch could be a Goblin Queen? He narrowed his eyes as he remembered something Jareth had said. Her magic had not awakened. It had been awakened. Forcefully, and painfully, if he had to guess.

Yet the woman before him bore none of the scars of trauma.

She was the most odiously happy Gryffindor he had ever had the misfortune to meet.

He remembered the jokes about the ghostly professor. He suspected they had been passed down through generations. _Binns was so boring, he died one night and never noticed the difference._ He rambled on, year after year, about a series of wars no one remembered, and no one took seriously. The Ministry certainly didn't take the Goblins seriously. They took goblin money seriously, but the goblins, as a species, were considered well under Ministry control.

Any yet, Binns had died, and rose to teach his class, as if nothing, not even death had mattered more.

Severus could feel himself poised on the tip of a knife. He could feel certainty turning, stretching into something he knew he would regret if he let himself see it clearly. He closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of another green-eyed Gryffindor demanding things he wasn't ready to give. Damn it, his war was over. Fought and won and done.

He'd died to see to that victory.

He wasn't going to get sucked into another's war.

Nor would he allow anyone to threaten that which he had died to protect. Miss Williams was standing far too close, and too blindly trusting, for a woman who might have the power to damage his world. He eyed the vulnerable curve of her body as she craned her head to look at him and dark thoughts whispered how easy it would be to reach out and snap her neck.

Killing, he thought grimly, was very much a part of his "type".

He was almost moving. Almost sliding down the cusp of decision, when he noticed the color of her eyes. They were tinged very slightly with red. She hadn't moved. She hadn't lost her faint smile. But as he blinked, the world seemed to shiver into focus, and he noticed other eyes watching him from the shadows. He took a careful step back, and considered that maybe she wouldn't be all that easy to kill after all.

It was something to remember.

"What do you plan to do to my world?"he asked softly.

Her expression never changed.

"I haven't decided yet,"she answered calmly, as if it never occurred to her to question whether she had that kind of power. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe a better question would be, what does your world think it can do to me?"

Severus examined the question, turning it as he inspected it for meaning and answers.

There were two kinds of power; the illusion of which and the fact. He and Lucius had passed many a night debating the strengths and the weaknesses of each. Illusion, Severus had contended, would fail when exposed for the fraud that it was. Lucius had sneered and called him a Gryffindor at heart.

Illusion would only fail, he said, if the people who wanted to believe, decided it should fail. In fact, they would do everything from pretending the failure had not happened, to actively perpetuating the illusion, so as to shore up the citadels of their own power.

Fact, Lucius stated drunkenly, meant absolutely nothing.

What then, did one do with a woman who believed so strongly in her own illusions she had the power to make them a reality? Not simply through the agency of others, but with magic. He had seen her make a wish, and had seen that wish come true. Jareth had said a spoken wish carried more power than Severus was capable of wielding with a wand. What if that was true? What if that power were fact, and all this woman's illusions and certainties had the potential to become reality?

What did that make her?

In truth? In fact?

And what then, by all the gods, was a Goblin King?


	13. Chapter 13

Signs of recent battle grew more numerous as they descended toward the dungeons. His apprentice had asked for very little detail, and there was little he could say. They had won the war and were still tallying the cost. Barely a week had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts, and no one was even certain all the wounded had yet been found.

"I don't understand what you expect me to do,"Miss Williams burst out.

Severus kept walking. "I don't expect you to do anything except scrub a few cauldrons and stay out of the way. By law, I am required to provide adequate supervision, and there is nowhere else to put you at the moment."

"I can roll bandages,"his apprentice said, after a brief pause.

Severus snorted. "In case it escaped your attention, you were quarantined in the Infirmary, Miss Williams. The wounded are all trained wizards of varying degrees, they are in pain, and most of them are barely conscious. Their magic flares unpredictably and you possess none of the skill or training required to defend yourself without injuring them further in the process."

"Wash dishes, then."

"The House-Elves would seek out Miss Granger just to strike in protest."

"Well then stick me in a library and give me some books on Magic for Muggles,"Miss Williams snapped.

Severus came to a dead halt and glared. "You are my _apprentice_. Keeping you under supervision includes not allowing you to get murdered. There does not have to be malice involved. Simply the wrong hex, at the wrong time, and no one to realize you don't have a wand to protect yourself."

Her eyes gleamed red for a moment.

"And,"Severus said forcefully,"you will stop relying on your bogles. They are not infallible. Until you can defend yourself like the witch you are, consider yourself under House arrest."

Her shoulders slumped and he stared at her for a moment, puzzled by her dejection. "You are far too old for these histrionics," he said finally.

Anger flashed in her eyes. "I'm going to look like a fool, Snape."

"Master Snape,"he corrected sharply.

"Master Snape then,"she said sarcastically. "I'm still going to look like an idiot."

"Probably."

She glared at him mutinously and he felt his irritation level start to spike. Damn Gryffindors and their damnable pride.

"I assure you, Miss Williams, nobody has enough time to waste very much of it on you. You'll survive."

He started to turn, only to halt when she grabbed his arm in a tight grip. He stared down at her hand incredulously.

"You listen to me, buster," his apprentice hissed. " You may be ungrateful enough to throw the fact he saved your life back in his face, but you are not going to humiliate him or damage the Goblin Kingdom. He trusts me to be the Goblin Queen and by god I am not going to let them down!"

"Think that highly of yourself, do you?"Severus asked reflexively, not really intending the insult. He simply reacted to the attack before he could think better of it.

She dropped her hand. "And you don't think enough,"she said coldly. "He wants us here. Us. Here. For a reason. If training me was all he needed, he could have done it himself. Or kept you in the Goblin Kingdom to do it there."

Severus felt a cold smile creep across his face. "I am not a complacent prisoner."

"He can reorder time, Snape. Are you telling me there's nothing he could have offered you?"

If she had seemed disparaging, or condescending, or triumphant, he could have laughed and told her no. Instead, she spoke the words quietly, and there was a certain pained knowledge in her eyes that he didn't want to understand. It was knowledge that only comes when something has been done that can never be taken back.

It would appear she had her own scars after all.

He didn't ask how far back a Goblin King could reorder time. Five minutes. Five days. Five years. It didn't matter. There would have been something, some decision he would have traded his soul to get back. If even one of the children who had died last week could have been saved, Severus would have snapped his wand himself if need be. Donned the shackles and thrown away the key.

"He offered me a dream, "Severus heard himself say faintly."Not time."

Merlin knew what she saw in his face then. She didn't offer worthless apologies, nor did she flinch.

"Be grateful,"she said bluntly.

This time, it was he who grabbed for an arm as she turned away. "Grateful?"he asked, his voice sounding odd and strained to his own ears.

"You aren't responsible for the dead,"she said quietly. " Reorder time, and you will be."

Regrets clamored in his head, screaming that they should be the one to be let free.

Miss Williams gave a tight smile."He moves the stars for no one. He could, but he doesn't, and one has to wonder why, after a while. But he might...for me. If I ask. Which is why I can't. And I never will."

They stood like that, frozen. A man of regrets and a woman who refused to have any. Until a scream of rage sent them both spinning in place, him reaching for his wand, her for a dagger. He considered the weapon briefly and reminded himself to acquire a combat instructor for her. Lucius would know of someone both competent and trustworthy.

He didn't relax until he saw the bogle. It shrieked and cackled, a wand clutched in one hand as he ran laughing through the hall a bare three steps ahead of the red-faced witch scrambling furiously after him. Severus sighed. He'd have been amused if he hadn't been so exasperated.

_Damn girl picks the oddest times to forget she's a witch._

He took a step forward, raising his wand to retrieve Miss Granger's stolen property when the bogle cut left and dashed into an empty classroom. The muted sounds of two Apparation wakes popped almost immediately afterwards and Severus snarled. Just because the wards were down was no excuse for...

"It's okay, he's just playing Snag,"Williams said as Miss Granger barreled into the classroom and an explosion of curses and shrill-voiced screeching followed. Frankly, Severus wasn't certain which voice belonged to the bogle, and which to the girl.

Something tugged on his elbow and he stared balefully at the hand that had developed such a fondness for gripping his person. He wondered how his apprentice would feel if he removed it at the wrist. The woman had absolutely no sense of personal boundaries whatsoever. None.

He yanked his arm out of her clutches. "If you don't mind?"

She rolled her eyes and started forward. "Seriously, it's okay. It's Snatch and Tag. All you have to do is..."

A high-pitched scream of pain sounded and Severus was acutely aware of time slowing as Miss Williams turned to give him a puzzled glance as he froze in momentary horror. _Cat._ His brain observed. _Kneazle_, it corrected, a half-second later.

"Down,"he yelled hoarsely, grabbing Miss Williams by whatever limb he could reach and throwing her to the floor. He heard her yelp as his body came down over top of hers and he cast a non-verbal shield spell just as the shockwave slammed into it, bouncing over them and rolling down the hall, rattling stone and ripping tapestries off the walls.

"What the hell was that?"Miss Williams demanded, eyes shocked.

"Fall-out,"he said grimly.

Then he lurched back to his feet and hoped like hell some of the dampeners were still in place. At least around the Infirmary. He raced for the doorway and took in the scene at a glance. Potter was down on one knee, cradling the limp body of Miss Granger's familiar. Weasley was standing frozen a few steps away, his wand held limply at his side. Both boys seemed unharmed.

Miss Granger had the bogle by the feet and was swinging it down against the edge of a table with a wide overhand arc in an apparent attempt to separate its head from its body.

"Don't," _Thump._

"You," _Whack._

"Ever." _Thump._

"Hurt," _Crack._

"My cat!" _Whack._

Then she started over.

Whatever else Gryffindors might be,Severus thought distantly, he had to admit they were magnificent when enraged beyond reason. Ground zero for a hurricane, and about as indiscriminate. A glance at Potter and Weasley showed that neither seemed inclined to intervene. Weasley was almost as aroused as he was terrified, and Potter appeared content to watch. Neither seemed to think the gathering elemental magic to be anything to be concerned about.

Morons.

Her hair was snapping with wild blue traceries and he knew if she looked up, her eyes would be blind with magic. It was getting hard to breath, standing this close to her, and in another few minutes, she was going to disassemble that bogle at the molecular level and go looking for another target. With the wards down and the dampeners in questionable condition, this was a problem.

He shivered slightly as he tasted the full breadth of her adult power for the first time.

"Miss Granger!" he barked out, startling Weasley into almost falling over.

She halted, the bogle hanging limply from her white-knuckled hands. It took her a full minute to turn toward him, and he wondered if the shock of seeing him alive for the first time since she had left him for dead would be enough to snap her out of her spiraling rage.

"One would think you have seen enough death these past few weeks,"he snapped,"to prevent you from taking your anger out on those who can't defend themselves."

Her eyes followed him as he took a step to the right and crossed his arms to glower down at her.

"I confess, I find myself disappointed in you, Miss Granger,"he said truthfully."I would have expected better."

He was vaguely aware of Potter shaking his head in warning. Even Weasley was wearing an odd expression of concern. The short burst of hysterical laughter that burst from her mouth startled him. Her magic swirled and gathered around her with disturbing intensity.

Severus shuddered as the energy suddenly swept out toward him, invading his body, tasting every cell. It licked up and down his skin, learning him, analyzing him. Spitting him back out to stagger away from her as she glared at him with absolute contempt.

"You know what Snape?"Miss Granger said hoarsely, for the first time in memory using anything other than a proper honorific. "I don't give a damn."

Then she Apparated from the room.

Witch, wand, familiar, and two friends with nothing better to do than stand there with their mouths open as she wandlessly took them with her.


	14. Chapter 14

She wasn't just tired, she was exhausted. Numb to the bone, arms filled with lead, and would have traded her kingdom for the right to fall down, exhausted. It was a new feeling for her. Not even the Labyrinth had worked her over so painfully. That had been a mental journey more than anything.

This had been drudge work, pure and simple.

Cauldron after cauldron of stinky, sticky potions created by hollow-eyed children who came and went from the dungeons while Snape stirred and chopped at the front of the classroom. Occasionally, Snape would lift his head and glare at a particular student. The child would freeze, eyes desperately searching the table. Sometimes they would flush and do something different. Sometimes the person next to them would lean over and whisper something in their ear that caused them to pale.

When they were done, they dropped their cauldrons onto her pile of Never-Ending Toil and she had wondered that she had ever had the nerve to see Karen as the wicked stepmother. Snape was the wicked stepmother. Complete with awful teeth and a pointed hat. She had seen the hat when he yanked his work robes out of a closet. At least she was allowed to sit while she scrubbed.

She was feeling more than a touch resentful.

She wanted to shout that the Goblin Queen had better things to do than scrub dirty dishes – but that seemed overly arrogant, even to her own tired ears. So she thought it instead of saying it. And felt incredibly guilty, because these children were clearly exhausted and trying to help their fellow man. Wizard.

Whatever.

But she had rapidly lost patience with their hero worship of Harry Potter. Even those who resented him were contributing to his near sainthood by trying to tear him down instead of focusing on the real problem. Finally the Toil dwindled and the last child toddled off to bed. Only Snape continued chopping and stirring.

The clean cauldron made a satisfying clang as it impacted with a stone wall.

"Your people are a bunch of morons and idiots."

Snape didn't look up from his cauldron.

She raised her voice to a high falsetto. "Harry Potter did this. Harry Potter did that. I say Harry Potter should have said bugger to the lot of you and escaped to Australia."

Snape rolled his eyes, again without looking up from the potion he was stirring. "The boy could no more have run from his destiny than you did. Or did I miss something while you were dancing with the daggers, oh Goblin Queen?"

Sarah snarled. "This isn't about Harry Potter. The kid did exactly what he was supposed to do. Bloody damn heroic and all that rot. I'm talking about everyone else."

At that, Snape did look up. She shuddered for a moment at the way the light seemed to disappear into his eyes, leaving them flat and dead looking.

"Not everyone is strong enough to save themselves."

"There!" Sarah launched herself to her feet and pointed at him. He stared at her finger with a look of caution and affront. "Right there!. That's your buggering problem. You tell people they aren't strong enough to solve their own problems the next thing you know, it's okay for them to abdicate personal responsibility because- you know- they aren't strong enough. Let the strong ones, the capable ones like Harry Potter worry about the problems of the world. I'm just a common goblin,"she squeaked in mockery," it's not my place to worry about the affairs of kings."

Snape stopped stirring and slammed the metal rod in his hand down against the tabletop with just a touch more force than she had come to expect from him. He grabbed up a pinch of something yellow and drew in a deep breath before carefully dropping it into the potion. Then he cast some sort of spell on the cauldron and leaned away from it to fix her with an angry eye.

"Shall I count the dead for you? The "common goblins" who tried to resist and paid for it with their lives?"

"How many of them belonged to the Order of the Phoenix?" Sarah asked sharply.

Snape opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap.

"I'm not talking about your resistance fighters,"Sarah said bluntly."I'm talking about the thousands – thousands Snape – who made it possible for Riddle to come to power! He didn't take power all by himself. They gave it to him. And then they stood back and waited for someone else to save them."

"There was a prophecy..."

Sarah snorted in disgust. "Oh a pox on your prophecy. It didn't say how, and it didn't say when. It certainly didn't say there was no other way. Do you know how many times I've heard that prophecy spoken today? Like it was God's own gospel – and a damn good excuse for the common wizard to do fuck all. Meanwhile, this Dumbledore of yours signed a child's death warrant and put a doomsday weapon within the reach of a sociopath. You should have shot the both of them, Dumbledore and Riddle both."

Snape gave a short bark of laugh. "That thought occurred more than once, to a few of us." Then his face hardened. "However, that doesn't give you the right to judge something of which you know nothing."

Sarah narrowed her eyes,"Oh it doesn't, does it? I learned all about taking personal responsibility for my own actions when I was younger than most of these students here. I'm sure they were very brave, and that some of them died heroically. But most of them still don't see how their own actions and the actions of their parents could have brought them to this point. I hear them blaming Dumbledore, and Riddle, and Harry Potter, and the Death Eaters, and even you. They are blaming the Purebloods and the Muggleborns without any idea of what that actually means. I know, because I asked, and no one could give me an answer. "

"Prejudice isn't rational, Williams."

Sarah growled again. "Prejudice didn't cause this war, Snape. Decisions did. The actions and inactions of the thousands who did nothing, because it was comforting to think there was nothing they could do. Blame prejudice if it makes you feel better. The real culprit was ignorance and apathy. "

Snape crossed his arms and glared down at her. "How blessed we are that you have come to save us from ourselves! How foolish of us not to have realized these facts before now. I'm certain you will win many friends and allies when you sally forth and announce your conclusions to the world."

His voice had risen and his arms flung themselves wide on the last ringing note of scathing irony. Her lips twitched involuntarily as her sense of the ridiculous – and timing – announced that the audience should be waiting for the next line right about now. She snickered briefly.

All's the world a stage, indeed.

"You really are a drama queen, aren't you?"

He sniffed. "Takes one to know one."

Then his expression sobered. "This is not the Muggle world, Miss Williams. We are a medieval society that has not really changed since the days of Merlin. We still seek to crown a King - although the Ministry would have you believe we are a democracy. Magic makes it difficult for the peasants to revolt."

"Especially if they chose to remain peasants," she mumbled.

"Especially if they refuse to see that they are peasants,"Snape corrected grimly."And as long as they refuse to see the role they have accepted, they will take no action to move beyond it.

"That's just wrong,"Sarah stated.

"Welcome to the Wizarding World, Miss Williams."


	15. Chapter 15

She was still tired.

Snape had refused to say anything further. Looking tired himself, he had summoned a House-Elf and directed Nob to show Sarah to her rooms. She hadn't even had the energy to be curious about the plurality of that statement. She didn't care how many rooms she had as long as she had a bed.

Nob had also been instructed to bring Sarah breakfast in her rooms instead of letting her eat in the Great Hall. Miss Williams, apparently, was not to be trusted with this decision. Any other day, Sarah would have argued. But the last of her energy has dissipated, taking her outrage with it and leaving her feeling cold and mildly resentful.

She was too tired to protest when Nob curled her lip at the smell coming off Sarah's clothes and peremptorily pushed her down the hallway and into a glorious bathing room. Even in her exhaustion, the decadence of the tiled floor and stained glass windows left Sarah gaping in astonishment. Nob snapped her fingers and Sarah yelped as her clothes disappeared. Then Nob planted her small hand unexpectedly in the middle of Sarah's back and pushed.

Sarah belly-flopped into bath suds and hot water, coming to the surface, gasping and sputtering with shock. Momentarily startled into alertness, she shoved her air out of her eyes and turned to glare at the Elf. The room was empty. An audible pop preceded the appearance of soap, a bathing sponge, and a crystal vial of something that was probably shampoo. Pip appeared a moment later looking frightened.

He hissed for a moment, then settled down to post watch.

The hot water and something in the suds that smelled of eucalyptus seeped into her skin and she closed her eyes as she drifted against a seat carved into the side of the pool. Only the knowledge she would likely fall asleep and drown kept her from fully enjoying the soothing motion of the water. Her arms were too heavy and too sore to lift properly, and she thought maybe sleeping here wasn't such a bad idea after all.

She heard a slight splash as someone slipped into the pool with her. Pip didn't protest, and she had the momentary thought it was Nob checking to make certain she was still alive when long fingers closed over her shoulders, pulling her away from the protective embrace of the wall.

Strong thumbs dug into the knots on either side of her spine and she arched into his hands with a low moan of contentment. A low chuckle rumbled behind her and she felt herself being tugged backwards.

"You better not be naked, Jareth,"she warned fuzzily, her body boneless as nimble fingers shifted to massage the base of her neck.

He chuckled again. "You are too tired for offended sensibilities,"he said with a smile in his voice. "And I prefer my lovers to be conscious."

That made sense.

"S'okay then,"she mumbled.

His fingers stilled. "You are far too trusting, Sarah,"she heard him whisper. "And for no good reason I can perceive."

She wasn't sure whether it was a question. She was wondering if she was supposed to answer when she felt the cold trickle of something on her head and his fingers started massing her scalp. She moaned with the sheer pleasure of the feeling and felt his hands falter for the briefest moment before resuming their task.

"I could almost understand you claiming your title on a whim. You are ever the dramatic, my love,"he continued in a puzzled voice. "But there is nothing of whim in your reaction to me."

She wondered vaguely why he seemed almost distressed by that fact. He tilted her head back gently and she felt his fingers combing the strands of her hair as he rinsed it free of shampoo.

"Sarah, you do not know me,"he said sharply. "Whatever could have possessed you to place yourself thus within my power?"

He really was upset, she thought distantly. She'd have spoken but his touch seemed to have rendered her incapable of speech. Body exhausted and pliable with the heat, she could only turn her face trustingly into his hand.

She heard a sharp inhalation as he froze.

Then she was being lifted from the water and a low murmur from him wrapped her in a cocoon of warm air as her skin dried almost instantly. She felt the world turn itself inside out and three steps later he was lowering her to the surface of something soft that smelled of lavender. Her hand started to tighten involuntarily on his shoulder and she opened her eyes to see him studying her face grimly.

"Now, Sarah. You will explain yourself."

She gazed at him, taking in the alien arch of his features. The almost cruel curve to his nose. The birdlike resemblance she had missed the first time around. Time had not polished the edges from his face and he looked both timeless and older than she remembered. He was not beautiful, she thought with some surprise. Involuntarily she smiled and touched her fingers gently to his mouth.

"My wild thing,"she whispered affectionately.

His eyes went wide and he jerked away from her hand, startled. He lowered his head suspiciously and peered at her through narrowed eyes.

"You are a foolish child,"he said coldly.

"Probably,"she agreed.

The moment the word left her lips she remembered someone else who held the same opinion and she pouted.

"They are all insane, Jareth."

The look on his face suggested he thought her perfectly at home, then. She ignored him and vocalized her dissatisfaction.

"They treat magic like a toaster,"she said, then reconsidered whether he would even understand the description.

He sighed as he lowered himself to the bed and stretched out upon it. He stared at her for a long moment and she eyed him with mild interest. She was too tired to be concerned and somehow she didn't think he planned to pounce on her.

A pity that.

"There is no joy. No surprise. No...respect," she expanded.

He looked at her blandly. "You are so certain of your opinion. Perhaps you wish to give it a second day?"

She had the mental acuity of a rock, thanks to that bath, but she was fairly certain the last sentence was laced with amusement, not censure. She snorted and his mouth twitched slightly at the corner.

"Magic is commonplace for them, Sarah. And they have recently come from a war where it was turned against them. It has become something to fear, I suspect."

"Sure. Blame something else, instead of themselves. They seem to be good at that,"she said sulkily, not completely certain why she was so angry with them.

"I am sorry they have disappointed you, my love,"Jareth said gently.

As easy as that, she started to cry. He looked startled, then hesitantly squirmed closer and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder as she sniffled. She wrapped her arms around him and without hesitation pushed her face into him as she cried out her despair.

"They weren't supposed to be like this,"she wailed into his chest.

He gave a non-committal hum that probably meant he thought she was overreacting, but she was only twenty-five damn it, not however many centuries he could claim. She was entitled to cry at disappointment. The unexpected laughter at the ridiculous nature of that thought emerged as a watery snicker and she felt him smile against her hair.

"And humans call us mercurial."

She sniffed, and refused to move.

"I wasn't joking when I said they were insane,"she finally said, quietly. "Hermione Granger tried to kill Tilp."

"Did he deserve it?"

Sarah snorted. "Sure. But she really lost it, Jareth. I've never...I've never felt anything like it."

Jareth pushed back from her and looked down at her seriously.

"Hate,"she said with a shudder, remembering the sickening taste of the magic as it swept over them. "It was hate."

Jareth tilted his head."Was anyone hurt?"

Sh frowned, annoyed he didn't seem to understand what she was trying to say. "Snape got her focused on him. Tried to distract her. I don't think she reacted the way he expected however."

"Ah."

Sara glared at Jareth's bland expression. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Jareth shrugged with unconcern. "Simply that I am not surprised. I suspect that particular daughter of Mil has cause to be vexed with our Alchemist."

"Why?"Sarah asked. Not that she disbelieved him. She had a feeling Snape was good at making enemies. "What did he do to her?"

Jareth's eyes darkened. "He died."


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N: Sorry for the delay all. Aside from being being a bit demotivated by life, I have limited 'net access. I can read emails, etc,but my ability to upload files is limited by my ability to get to a computer with a USB port and access to the web. Since I use Google Docs to spellcheck, my ability to post has to be grabbed when I can, so I also have not taken advantage of a very generous offer to beta my work._

_What can I say? I'm impatient,lol. _

_I'm hoping to have a true net access on a half-decent computer by May. _

* * *

She wasn't where she was supposed to be.

Seven days since she had almost killed him and she was still missing.

Notwithstanding suicidal escapades with Potter, he couldn't recall a time when that had happened that had not involved the Dark Lord or the Hospital Wing. Severus snarled and the knife flashed in his hand as he viciously chopped three handfuls of feverfew and threw it in his cauldron.

He had made it clear to the whole school that everyone was needed and which dangerous and difficult potions he planned to brew. He'd fully expected to see Miss Granger's repentant face five minutes before anyone else arrived, irritating him with questions, and bullying Potter and Weasley into a modicum of good behaviour.

Severus brooded over the ingredients left on the table and waited for the steam to give off the slightest hint of burnt lavender. It was disappointing really. He'd believed her judgmental nature was outweighed by her compassion.

The student using her desk flinched when he looked up and caught Severus glaring at him. The boy hunched his shoulders and peered uncertainly into his cauldron. Severus curled his lip disdainfully at the boy's blatant lack of confidence in his own knowledge. Merlin save them all if he became a Mediwizard. Miss Granger at least would have narrowed her eyes at the recipe, mentally back-tracked every step, then glared back. Politely.

Not that Severus cared about her opinion.

Truthfully, he had not even noticed her efforts to avoid him until she came a kneazle's whisker from having an elemental meltdown with him as the focus. Now she was a bloody rotten tooth. A pestilent Gryffindor ache in his behind. Her absence nagged at him and he blamed Albus-sodding-Dumbledore. Too many years chasing after the suicidal trio had made him hypersensitive to their presence. He had one ulcer that twinged when he knew what they were up to, and two that went off when he did not.

The Order damn well owed him hazard pay.

It wasn't that he expected thanks, he thought, hacking at a fresh chunk of ginger. He had no need for a parade. Apparently, however, his inner teenager still lusted after approval from pretty young Gryffindors with more brains than common sense. He stabbed angrily at the chopping board with the tip of his knife as he caught sight of his own reflection in the side of the cauldron.

_Pathetic, Snape. Truly pathetic_.

He knew what he was, and how the world viewed him. He expected nothing and they had expected nothing from him. The exception had been Miss Granger. He had caught her watching him occasionally, her brow furrowed, and she had threatened greater plans with her ability to ferret out the truth. She had proven that when she caught his hints and warnings about Lupin in Third Year. Her blind trust had been appalling, but it was her ability to be discreet that had proved more worrisome.

It made her unpredictable, and that made her dangerous.

Especially around Potter.

Severus had warned Albus, but the Headmaster had just shrugged and pointed out that she had clearly drawn the correct conclusion that all the teachers were aware of Lupin's condition from Snape's knowledge of it. Respect and trust had kept her silent. It was what they would have asked her to do in any case, and she had obviously realized that.

Severus had been less sanguine.

Albus, for all his love of Muggles, had never understood the inherent power of logic to cut through smoke and mirrors. There had been no distrust or disgust in her eyes when she watched Severus. That implied she believed he had outed the werewolf for reasons other than petty revenge. That led to the logical conclusion that his actions had a place in greater plans and that was a very dangerous thing for her to know.

It also implied she had made a deliberate, reasoned decision to keep silent.

At thirteen, she had been defining her own place in the war with an active intelligence that was unfortunately in a position to see things others couldn't. She had a front row seat for their interactions with Potter and daily opportunity to observe her professors. She had _**chosen**_ to rely on her own judgment. All without jeopardizing Potter and Weasley or compromising her relationship with them.

She had been a loose cannon even then, and Albus had just smiled and offered Severus a lemon-drop.

It had never been certain that they would win the war. Nor that it would ever be safe to reveal Severus's place within it. Still, he had made certain at least one person would know the truth. Apparently, the truth didn't matter to the person he had chosen.

Not that her opinion should matter to him.

She was a child.

He had been responsible for her safety, nothing more. Still, if he and Lilly had reproduced, he rather thought they might have produced someone much like Miss Granger. Lily's Gryffindor heart and Severus's lust for knowledge. Seeing his own worst traits reflected in Gryffindor eyes had made for a trying seven years. He didn't need more reminders about his personal failings. Potter's green eyes and abusive childhood were bad enough.

A tiny claw poked the back of his hand and he started in surprise. One of Miss Williams's bogles perched on the end of the table and looked anxiously from Severus's hand to the cauldron. His mouth tightened. They knew they weren't supposed to mess with his potions. Then he registered the bubbles starting to pop on the potion's surface and he cursed as he threw in the mint and began stirring furiously.

The bogle gave an odd chirp, then cackled as it leapt off the table and scuttled under a nearby table. Severus frowned, unsettled by the notion the bogle had actually recognized the danger and acted to prevent it. His particular worldview was not comfortable with the thought of intelligent bogles.

His apprentice was giving him a thoughtful look.

The room was too hot. Damn noisy students used up too much air. Suddenly aggravated by the very sound of them breathing he was absolutely certain that if he didn't escape he was going to kill them all.

"Leave,"he snapped. Then watched as they gaped at him stupidly.

He would have thought they would have learned to move faster by now.

Three minutes later he closed his eyes as the door slammed shut behind them. He savoured the silence. Still, it wasn't enough. He had to move. Now. And except for Lucius, there was no one left who might agree to a duel. Not the way he needed it. Hard and fast and dangerous.

Slytherin rules.

"Are you allowed to do that?" his apprentice asked curiously, looking at the closed door.

He grimaced. "No."

A topic of discussion that was certain to arise with Minerva in the very near future. Sooner if he stayed in the castle.

"Get your robe, Miss Williams," he said curtly. "We're escaping."

Bogles shrieked, but disturbingly the sound suited his mood. He even managed to wait with a modicum of patience as she Floo'ed to her room to change. He focused on the other Gryffindor aggravation in his life.

Regrettably, although she seemed suitably ecstatic at abandoning her pile of dirty cauldrons, he still wasn't seeing the cracks in her psyche he had expected by now. Pain, exhaustion, and hunger were the fastest ways to get a person to react by reflex and he had used all three. Once he knew how her magic behaved under stress, he could start breaking down her conditioned responses, and retrain her.

Like another Gryffindor he refused to waste time considering, she wasn't cooperating.

"You realize they think we're sleeping together."

Startled he spun around, half-reaching for his wand. She ignored the aborted gesture and folded her arms across her chest as she stared at him with a strange combination of consternation and challenge. He eyed the silent Floo behind her for a long moment, then blinked as he reran her comment past his inner ear.

"I doubt 'sleeping' is the verb they are using," he mumbled absently, still regarding the Floo with narrowed-eyed evaluation. Then he paused.

"Does it bother you?"he asked stiffly, not liking the flare of guilt and regret that ambushed him.

"Me? No,"she said cryptically. Then she gave a strange twisted smile. "I stopped caring what others believed when I was twelve. People rarely want the truth, and gossips don't care who they hurt as long as they get their vicarious thrill."

"How very cynical."

Severus wondered if she actually meant her own words. Most people didn't. Her smile had faded, but there was something in her eyes that made him inclined to believe her.

How surprising.

"Your wardrobe is inadequate,"he said abruptly, stalking toward the Floo.

He heard an exasperated sigh as he passed her.

"Transfigured clothing is inherently unstable,"he informed her sharply."Never wear it when you are working with potions."

There was silence. Then she sighed again. "Is that why everyone keeps looking at me oddly?"

He grimaced again, this time with disgust. "Transfigured clothing has the dubious distinction of identifying two very different groups of people, Miss Williams. It reacts badly with strong magic – I trust you have noticed the way it vibrates unpleasantly against bare skin?"

She shuddered and he took that for a yes.

"The first group then are the magically inadequate, who don't possess enough magic to notice the effect."

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, no doubt wondering why he would leave his apprentice open to that sort of speculation.

He ignored the implied question. "The second group is comprised of the obscenely wealthy individuals who concern themselves with fashion statements about that wealth. They generally do not work for a living – and thus do not need the protective spells that any working wizard weaves into his clothing as a matter of course. It goes without saying that they are wealthy enough to pay other people to jump in front of stray hexes."

Miss Williams smirked. "And the creepy crawlies?"

"Silk lining," he said dryly."Of the finest quality."


	17. Chapter 17

Sarah listened to the aggressive snap of Snape's cloak as he stalked along beside her. From the safety of her backpack Tilp muttered something about the Fiery chewing on his arse and it took her a moment to realize the goblin was speaking figuratively. She sighed and choked back a laugh.

She had an odd life.

He had chosen to Apparate them to Diagon Alley and his mood had grown sullen again as they made their way from the dungeon to the front doors. The students had cringed out of his way and his dark-eyed gaze had skipped over them coldly, seeking something he clearly didn't find.

He had been silent the whole way to the Apparation point and she had wondered if he was going to be that way for the entire trip. He had planted his boots at the Apparation point and stared at her with angry challenge in his eyes while she looked back with confusion. Then, without warning, he had stepped into her personal space, wrapped his arm around her waist, and spun them into the magic.

She'd had to clutch at his robes as she tried to keep from spewing her breakfast when they came to a halt. She decided grimly she liked Jareth's version of inter-spatial travel much better. Of course, he had a few centuries or so of practice, so she probably couldn't blame Snape.

Thanks to her mother's career and her own forays into the theatre arts, she had a firm grasp of body language and spatial positioning. Once her stomach stopped protesting, she stepped a precise distance away from Snape. Close enough to indicate trust, but far enough not to give the wrong impression. He'd raised his eyebrow when she grinned at him, then his mouth had twitched reluctantly.

One apprentice, picture perfect and respectful.

If Jareth's obscure hints bore any weight at all, Snape had a reluctant admirer and she felt a semi-guilty obligation to protect the witch from Snape's cluelessness. It seemed the Goblin Queen owed the witch a debt. The morning after Hermione's meltdown, Pip had finally admitted the goblins had been torturing her cat after it had hissed at them.

The goblins had gone uncharacteristically quiet when she had discovered that fact. Magic crackled and thrummed in her veins and her vision had gone white around the edges as they stared wide-eyed back at her. She still hadn't forgiven them for how they had tormented Ludo, and she could only imagine what the young witch must have felt, hearing her familiar's cries so soon after seeing her friends slaughtered on a battlefield.

In the coldest voice she had ever heard from her own throat, she'd managed to tell them that they could hunt for food – cleanly and as mercifully as they could. They could torment the guilty. But if she ever discovered them hurting an innocent creature for amusement again, they would regret it.

For a very long time.

She had turned from them in disgust only to discover Jareth leaning against the bedroom wall behind her. She had raised her chin and glared at him, daring him to find fault with her anger. The magic raced through her blood, trying to escape. It pushed and shoved at her control and she had to resist the urge to start flinging things at his head.

Words glimmered just within her reach. Powerful, angry words that contained the full sum of what she felt, and pleaded to be spoken. Jareth ignored them, stepping casually into them as they swirled around her. They ignored him in turn and she suddenly found herself more interested in Jareth as he paced around her in a wide circle. It was eerily reminiscent of their last meeting in the Labyrinth.

Unlike last time, he wasn't exhausted or wary. He glittered, wild and predatory as he turned, and she turned with him, instinctively keeping him in sight. Whatever he was, he stirred her interest this time, more than her rage, and the words began to twist and slide, winding around his body.

He darted forward, a jarring, shocking move that had her freezing uncertainly as she discovered herself nose to nose with him. His breath was warm against her mouth and she had inhaled deeply, pulling the taste of him deep inside her. She had become excruciatingly aware of the closeness of his body to her own and was not quite certain how they had gotten there. He'd made an odd crooning noise in the back of his throat and she had shuddered.

The words shifted again, slithering beneath his clothing, squirming up his sleeves, and diving down through the open collar at his neck. His eyes had darkened as the magic caressed his skin, and he had brushed the tip of her nose with his own as he smiled.

Smirked really.

And the words had collapsed around her and faded from view.

Then Jareth had literally disappeared, and she hadn't seen him since. She had been alternately frustrated, confused, and relieved by his absence. She had spent the last week watching Snape watch the empty doorway of his classroom and scrubbing her hands raw.

She was now intimately familiar with how messy a potion could get – but seeing as how the students never cleaned their own cauldrons, she didn't see as she was learning anything useful. She did learn that certain students seemed to take malicious pleasure in dropping their cauldrons on her table. They were the same students who watched her as she sat next to Snape in the Great Hall, and whose whispers in the hallway cut off sharply whenever they saw her.

Until she had a wand and could judge the effectiveness of her words against this other magic, she was essentially defenseless. Nor had she forgotten Jareth's request for her to stop using her words until they could talk about it. Since he wasn't here, she couldn't discuss anything. She had been forced to stay close to Snape in order to prevent a confrontation between the students and her goblins and she wasn't happy about it.

Perhaps today was the day that would change.

Diagon Alley was the same explosion of colors and sound she remembered from before. If anything, there were even more people, and many of the windows that had been boarded up were now exposed and being washed or repainted. In fact, everywhere she looked, there seemed to be signs of frantic cleaning.

"You are my apprentice,"Snape said quietly, his words drawing her to a halt. "In practical terms, I am responsible for your safety and any damage you do." He gave her a piercing look."I do not wish to spend time in Azkaban on account of you. Govern yourself accordingly or I guarantee you will regret it."

Sarah did not miss the significant look he gave her backpack.

Snape looked down the street, eyes touching on the colorful robes fluttering about the street. His mouth twisted. "Education is a priceless commodity. "

She frowned, uncertain how this pertained to her. She was fully aware of the value of knowledge. Her lack of it, was why she was here. There had been hints, over the years, that the fate of the Goblin Kingdom might someday rest on what she knew about magic.

"We knew less, a thousand years ago," Snape said contemplatively."Even so, a basic apprenticeship still took five years to complete. Two more years in a single specialty were required to advance to Journey level." Snape shrugged." After that, a student might spend ten years or more studying on their own or with selected Masters before choosing to challenge for a Mastery in their chosen field."

Sarah nodded to show that she understood while Snape continued to stare at the passing crowd with a fierceness she didn't understand..

"These days, OWLs and NEWTs have replaced Apprentice and Journey-level qualifications, but the underlying structure remains." Snape was silent for a long moment. "Advanced study is still restricted. In many ways, opportunity is limited to those with money and connections,"he said bitterly.

Jareth would see to any advanced training she might need, but it occurred to her that others might not have it so easy.

"There are Wizarding Universities?"she asked slowly.

Snape shook his head. "The Ministry feels it best to allow prospective employers to take responsibility for training their employees as they see fit."

"But that means..."

Snape's mouth twisted.

"The very poor cannot advance,"he said flatly. " The very wealthy control access to opportunity and dole those opportunities out like candy to the favored few. The middle class stagnates where it is lucky enough to end up, and there is very little in the way of lateral mobility or career changes. There's more than one reason our world fails to innovate."

Sarah had come with Snape voluntarily because she had no reason to distrust Jareth's motives and plenty of reason to gain control of her magic. But what if Snape had been her only option, and what if the Wizarding World was the only one she knew? What happened to the people who didn't have the skill to attract attention, or the connections to get training in a field they enjoyed?

And what if Snape had not been an honourable man?

"That could be costly,"she said carefully."For many people."

Snape touched his right hand to his left forearm."It could,"he said softly.

Then he looked at her sharply. "It takes money and Pureblood connections to obtain a Mastery in Potions. In the two decades since I obtained mine, I have acted as Master to none. A fact that has not sat well with either those who sponsored my own training or those who felt I had a debt to repay. Just by being what you are, Muggleborn and old-style apprentice, you will be a statement or insult to many. Be wary. They will not hesitate to strike at me by using you."

"I thought the war was over,"she said dryly.

"The Dark Lord may be gone,"Snape said grimly. 'But the reasons remain."

He turned toward a bookstore with a snap of his cloak and she followed thoughtfully.

Snape had just reached the doorway and was turning back toward her when she felt the caress of magic and real fabric slipped across her skin. Startled, she looked down to see unfamiliar black boots and trousers topped with a tunic of copper-colored chainmail. Black leather padded her forearms and right shoulder. A short black cloak flowed gracefully down her back, attached – from what she could see – by elaborate copper fastenings.

She wasn't sure of the inspiration, but she approved. Nor was she unhappy to lose the uncomfortable buzz her Transfigured cloak had created, even through her Muggle jeans and jumper. She wriggled one foot after the other inside her new boots, delighted by the fit. The chainmail was a reassuring weight, but light enough to suggest magic in its construction.

A shriek pierced the sky and she tilted her head to look up.

A barn owl dove from the sky and she heard people gasp as it spread its wings at the last minute, settling delicately on her upthrust forearm. She grunted as Jareth's weight threatened her balance and was relieved when he picked his way carefully to her right shoulder.

"Show-off,"she muttered.

He nipped at the end of her nose.

Snape was regarding the new addition to her wardrobe with calculation. His gaze shifted to the owl gripping her shoulder and he sighed.

"Falconer,"he said sarcastically, as he bowed her slightly through the doorway.

She looked at him, confused, and Snape grunted. "I didn't think so," he murmured, as she stepped into the shadowy interior of the bookstore.

He said no more on the matter and she was distracted from the truly horrifying number of books confronting her by a red-faced man barrelling down on them.

"You know the rules, Master Snape,"the man blustered."No familiars around the books."

"He's not a familiar, Blott,"Snape said coolly.

The man looked horrified. "That's even worse! Filthy beasts, Post Owls. I'll be sweeping up droppings for weeks."

Jareth narrowed fierce golden eyes, clearly affronted.

Sarah reached up to soothe ruffled feathers, half expecting to get her hand bitten for the liberty. She was caught off guard when Jareth practically collapsed against the side of her neck and cooed. Snape gave both of them a disgusted look and Sarah had to shifted her weight awkwardly as Jareth threatened to ooze down her body in a limp puddle of feathers.

"Hedonist,"she hissed.

He looked almost embarrassed when he realized what he was doing. His feathers fluffed out as he shook his head rapidly, eyeing her accusingly.

Mr. Blott's head swivelled sharply as Snape reached into his robes, producing a small bag that clinked like metal. Disbelief, then greed, flashed in his eyes.

"We could order from elsewhere,"Snape said casually.

The man swallowed, then smiled sickly. "As you say, Master Snape. Clearly this...animal...is not a familiar."

Snape snorted, but slapped the bag into the man's hand. "I'll be checking the receipt."

Jareth nibbled on her hair as she followed Snape through the narrow pathways and towering stacks of books. Every so often Snape would tap a spine with his wand and the book would vanish. Jareth didn't seem to be paying any particular attention, but when they made their way to the counter, there was an additional stack of books with covers Sarah didn't recognize.

"I wouldn't have thought you particularly interested in Goblins, Master Snape," Mr. Blott said as he rang in the extra books. "We don't get much call for these books nowadays,"he said regretfully.

Snape said nothing, just gave the owl on her shoulder a sharp glance before waving his wand and shrinking bag after bag into something she could slide into the pouch at her waist.

"You didn't have to shrink them,"she said quietly, as they made their way out of the shop.

He regarded her backpack briefly, then opened the door. "Do not advertise the capabilities of that bag, Miss Williams. You will encourage curiosity in those who might wonder what else that pack contains."

"They would regret it,"Sarah said, not particularly worried.

"And so would you,"he said. "Bogles are Dark creatures. The Ministry would not be sympathetic. Better to avoid trouble, when you can. I have a feeling you will find enough of it regardless."

Jareth seemed inclined to agree.

As she looked around her, she realized that in spite of the bright colors and various fashions, she still stood out. There were a few outfits almost as exotic as her own, but she slowly became aware that all of the people wearing them were other than human.

She studied them as unobtrusively as she could and found herself being observed in return. What conclusions they were drawing she could only guess. She was about to comment when she realized Snape had drawn ahead of her and was approaching a store with several dozen wands displayed in the window.

The building glowed with magic and Jareth squawked indignantly, thrown off-balance when she rushed to catch up to Snape. She grinned at Snape with delight and stepped into the store without hesitation. It was like stepping into a cathedral, all looming space and hushed voices. At the same time, she heard whispers, just below the point at which she could make out words.

The store was even more thickly packed with groaning shelves than the bookstore. A rustle from the back had her turning cautiously and a stooped man with unusually large eyes peered out at her from the shadows. He seemed confused for a moment, as he looked from her to Snape. Then his gaze settled on Jareth and she had the disturbing feeling he knew it wasn't just an owl riding her shoulder.

"Ollivander,"Snape said carefully. So carefully that Sarah wondered what sort of history she had walked into.

The little man gave Snape an assessing look, then smiled genially at Sarah. "Your first wand?"

She did not find his smile reassuring and Jareth's feathers puffed out along the back of his neck. Owl eyes regarded the man unblinking and the fellow tsked gently as he lifted a polished wand and moved swiftly to place it in her hand.

Sarah swayed dizzily as the wand sucked hungrily at her magic and she felt the words fall screaming into a long black tunnel that seemed to bore down through the center of the world. She heard Jareth shriek and remembered another fall, another sense of rushing magic. She wrapped her fingers around the coil of magic being pulled from her body and said one word.

_**Mine.**_

For that is the way it must be.

She yanked, and sucked her magic back into her body. The wand screamed and when she opened her hand, it fell to the floor in two pieces. Ollivander stared at them, ignoring the tip of the wand Snape had dug into his throat.

Jareth had stopped hissing when her eyes opened, but he still glared balefully at Ollivander.

"Relax, Your Majesty,"Ollivander said finally. "We had to know eventually."

Jareth hissed again, clearly not agreeing.

Ollivander took a deep breath, then smiled weakly. "Very impressive, Miss Williams. Not unusual given the circumstances, but your certainties are very...solid, are they not? Very odd, for a Muggleborn."

Snape's eyes narrowed and Ollivander turned to look at him. "Your apprentice is unharmed, Master Snape. It was a test, if you will. I think perhaps it is safe now, to introduce her to the other wands."

Snape flicked his eyes once toward the owl on her shoulder, surprising Sarah. Jareth cocked his head, then sighed and the feathers on his neck relaxed. The tip of Snape's wand jerked up and away but he didn't return the wand to the safety of his robes. Ollivander bowed toward Sarah and gestured for her to step further into the store.

The whispers returned and this time, she could feel the tugs on her magic, and the pull on her mind. All of them wanted something – and they all wanted something different. Some of them were almost as greedy as the wand Ollivander had handed her. Others were so meek as to be nearly inaudible. Sarah was startled by the almost sentient feel and she couldn't help her reflexive urge to courtesy.

"Hello,"she said cautiously."Good afternoon."

The whispers hushed, then she had the sense of several sets of eyes turning toward her. Evaluating her. Reassessing her. It was disconcerting. They were not alive, not precisely. But they had wants and needs and she felt those desires surge toward her.

Her immediate fears leapt to the front of her mind. The Goblin Kingdom and her responsibilities. Her need to protect. Most of the whispers died down as several boxes shuddered and worked their way to the front of the shelves. She trailed her fingers hesitantly along the boxes reading bluff strength here and sheer power there. All were almost what she needed, but none felt quite right.

She had made two turns around the room before she felt the watchful regard from the far corner.

A protective instinct that was almost feral raged through the wand, a territorial instinct that she sensed could wield her as easily as she could wield it. A dangerous wand, she thought. One that had very few instincts for self-preservation. This wand would defend her, and protect her, but it wouldn't save her from herself.

Beyond the power however, was a sense of justice. Of absolutes in honour. This wand had a sense of right and wrong that appealed on a visceral level. It hungered, this wand, to be drawn for the right reasons.

"Ebony, 11 inches. Heartstring and dragonscale core. It's an Auror's wand, Miss Williams, and an aggressive one at that. Not a good choice for charmwork. Are you certain...?"

Ollivander's voice faded into the background as she felt the handle of the wand settle into her palm and she felt her magic rush to meet it. She felt its promise, its desire to protect her and those in her care...and she felt it agree reluctantly with Ollivander. This wand would do as she asked, but it had no affinity or desire to waste itself on charms.

Sarah's hand clutched protectively around her wand, growling at the thought she might have to give it up. The wand denied that possibility fiercely, vibrating dangerously in response to her own possessive anger. A whisper soothed them both, sending flamboyant streaks of colored laughter through their fear.

They followed the whisper, and a second box rattled furiously, before flying off the shelf. The box fell away and the wand danced as it spun through the air and Sarah leapt to meet it. Power surged as the two wands connected briefly. She instinctively shifted the newest wand into her other hand, and the ebony wand settled into a watchful regard that seemed...content.

"Willow, 11.5 inches. Not as flexible as some I've made, but sturdy and well-suited to a wide range of charms. A very good choice for cross-disciplinary studies. The core is a bit unusual. I don't usually use owl feathers, but for some reason I felt compelled to braid them with silver."

Sarah almost smiled as a feeling like laughter tumbled through her mind. With a mischievous wand like this one, who knew what spells she might be encouraged to try. She could feel the wand quivering in her hand, eager to test their limits together.

"Well done, Miss Williams!"Ollivander exclaimed. "So few students seem to realize that they themselves make the choice to limit themselves to one wand. Such a shame really. Wands are ..."

He cut himself off abruptly as Sarah felt a light brush against her boot. She looked down to see a whip-thin wand of pale wood rubbing against her lower leg.

"No,no, Miss Williams. Not a good thing at all. Oak, 10 inches, hair from a unicorn's tail for a core. Herbology, Miss Williams. That's all a wand like that is good for. Plants and growing things. You really..."

Sarah picked it up.

"...don't want to do that,"Ollivander finished unhappily.


	18. Chapter 18

"Oh dear,"Ollivander said.

"Indeed," a voice said from behind them.

Severus found himself singularly unsurprised to turn and find Jareth standing arms akimbo, jaw clenched with annoyance. He was dressed simply in white shirt and black pants, but there were owl feathers braided into his hair. Severus had suspected the truth the moment the owl had landed on her shoulder. Still...

"Your Majesty,"Ollivander said in a tiny voice.

The self-professed Goblin King glared down his nose at the cringing wandmaker and threw up his hands, gesturing toward the oblivious Miss Williams who was communing with her wands.

All three of them.

"It was precisely this sort of thing I had hoped to avoid,"Jareth said, oddly seeming more exasperated than angry, given the disturbingly hard light in his eyes.. "A battle-weapon, of all foolish things."

Ollivander coughed,"Yes, well. I did warn you she might have an affinity for things related to dragons."

Jareth ignored the significant look directed his way by Ollivander. "Bah,"Jareth said, as he flounced over to a nearby chair and dropping into it, limbs sprawled with negligent grace. Jareth pinned Ollivander with a narrow-eyed gaze. "You know what will be made of this."

Ollivander chewed on his lip as he eyed Jareth nervously. Severus coughed with obvious and overdone annoyance. He was not pleased with this turn of events – particularly since he appeared to be the only one who didn't know what was happening.

Jareth redirected his hard-eyed stare. "Seven years, Alchemist. I give her into your keeping for seven years and two weeks later I have an untrained battle-queen on my hands. Perhaps you wish her dead and your world in turmoil?"

Severus narrowed his eyes.

"Then train her!"Jareth snapped."Cease your ridiculous mind games and accept that Sarah is not one of your usual charges. She believes, do you not understand that yet? She believes utterly and absolutely in the beauty of magic and her ability to wield it. There are no limits in her mind. Someday she will have the experience to handle that much power, but that day is centuries hence."

Severus curled his lip,"If she is so powerful, train her yourself."

For a moment, Jareth's face stilled and Severus felt a cold chill whip through the room. Ollivander flinched.

"Do not tempt me, Alchemist,"Jareth said in a flat voice. "I guarantee, you do not want her to ride with what she would learn from me. That is the only compassion I will grant you."

Then he blinked and Severus saw only a tired wizard with oddly colored eyes before him. It was a startling transition, not the least because it was familiar. Albus had looked thus, after his true self had peeked through. Severus felt the chill of the room creep into his bones.

Jareth looked at Ollivander. "Water?"

Ollivander grimaced. "She has no choice. If she hadn't accepted the last wand, Fire and Air could have coexisted well enough for years yet. Earth is not a large part of her personality, it was the wand that sought her out. But now, the set is too unbalanced..."

The wandmaker spread his hands and shrugged his helplessness.

"She has passed through barriers of world and space,"Jareth said, his tone ripe with warning." She has felt the ripples as the stars have been realigned. You know what sort of wand is likely to seek her out."

Ollivander shrugged again.

Jareth stared, expressionless, at the woman across the room. Then he sighed with something that should have been regret, but sounded more like a judgment.

"So be it."

Jareth tugged his gloves from his hands and Severus watched with guarded curiosity as Jareth spread his fingers and called forth one crystal after another. With a flick of his fingertips he sent them spinning toward Miss Williams who had yet to respond to anything beyond her new wands. The crystals started to spin around her. Severus thought he felt her magic beginning to react, then Jareth tilted his head back and uttered a single high-pitched cry.

The sound lanced through Severus's eardrums and the crystals echoed the piercing sound. A second note answered and he was shocked when he realized it was her magic, singing. The sound rose, the two notes twinged together, higher and higher until all he could feel, all he could hear, was a single note that pulsed in the same rhythm as the fabric of universe.

The crystals exploded.

When the light cleared, and his vision returned, Severus found Miss Williams holding a twisted wand of clearest quartz that flickered with a blueish-white light.

"Such a wand is one I would have given her on her five hundredth birthday,"Jareth said emotionlessly. "She holds it now with a bare twenty-six behind her. Do not let her use it, Alchemist, if you value this world at all. She will be drawn to touch it, she will have no choice in this. It will seek her out if you keep them apart. Let her touch it, bond with it, but do not let her carry it. It will be content with that, for now."

"It's shaped like a unicorn's horn,"Severus said wonderingly, not quite certain if he should be horrified or not.

"No,"Jareth corrected grimly,"It's shaped like time."


	19. Chapter 19

Hermione studied Sarah Williams from the doorway of the Potions classroom and contemplated failure. She didn't like the bitter sense of satisfaction she got as she watched one spell fail after another, not the least of which was the clear recognition that she was giving Snape far too much power over her.

"You need to turn your wrist a bit more to the left, on that last flick,"she said eventually.

She would be the better person if it killed her.

Sarah paused, then glanced at the doorway, brow furrowed. Hermione pulled Harry's cloak away from her face and wondered at the other woman's lack of surprise. A puff of air tugged at the cloak around her ankles and she could have sworn she heard a high-pitched giggle. Hermione glanced down, but didn't see anything.

Sarah tried again, getting it exactly right as far as Hermione could see, but nothing happened. Literally. Not even the fizzle of a failed spell. Both witches stared at the wand with consternation.

"Try again,"Hermione ordered, curiosity engaged in spite of her resentment of this particular witch.

Sarah swished and flicked, enunciating the spell with a precision Hermione found very annoying. Regardless, the effort was rewarded with exactly the same outcome. The feather on the desk remained resolutely on the desktop.

"That should have worked,"Hermione said finally, feeling unaccountably betrayed.

Sarah grimaced. "So Snape said."

Hermione felt her mouth turn down at the corners. "Master Snape."

She forced the honorific from her mouth, the correction like razor blades slicing into her flesh. She was vaguely surprised not to taste blood.

She looked at the other witch and wondered what had prompted Professor Snape to take her as an apprentice. Sarah Williams had no Pureblood connections to advance her career, and she knew less than the most ignorant of First Years. Sarah didn't even know enough to know if she even liked Potions, yet there she was. The Potion Master's first and only apprentice. Hermione knew he hadn't chosen the woman just to rub the fact Sarah was Muggleborn in Hermione's face, but oh God, it felt like it.

It had been the last lie she had been able to tell herself. The last comfort when she wondered what she had done to make him hate her so badly.

"Are you lovers?" The words burst unbidden from her mouth.

Hermione gasped and clapped a hand to her lips as she heard the accusation echo in the classroom. She knew her eyes were rounded in horror, and she resented how childish she felt when the other witch just slanted her an amused glance and shook her head.

It should have been a relief.

Instead, the answer tore apart the last desperately applied bandage she had wrapped around her emotions and she was mortified to feel hot tears well up in her eyes. She blinked, as hard as she could, but they spilled over anyway.

_Then why?_

The words wailed in her heart, but she refused to say them. She knew she wasn't good enough. All her study. All her late nights preparing for a battle she knew she wasn't ready to face. All the heart-pounding terror that someone would die because she just wasn't the witch everyone needed her to be. The brightest witch of her age.

What a joke.

The feather on the table went up in a puff of flame and smoke and for a moment she was almost startled enough by the elemental magic to be distracted. It terrified her, this feeling of being out of control. It recalled almost forgotten memories of her parents' fear as toys flew around the room and windows cracked with her anger.

She had learned to push down that rush of magic long before she knew what she was. Shove it down. Strangle it. Hide it. Keep it from revealing what she was. Scary. Unlovable.

Different.

The world darkened alarmingly and in that moment, she was back on the battlefield. People screamed and fell around her. The scent of Dark magic and burnt flesh tried to choke her and she had no time to decide which spell to use. No time to separate friend from foe. She didn't even know who was winning.

All she could do was keep her eyes on Harry and keep running, hexing anyone she saw aiming at him. Chaos whirled around her, and the one moment she let herself be distracted, she lost him. Someone screamed and fell beside her, and when she looked up, Harry was gone.

She had found him again. A point-me spell and a suicidally reckless race across bleeding grass and broken bodies. She found him in time, but she knew the truth. It wasn't because she was good. It was because she got lucky.

She had always known she was going to die.

She knew as far back as First Year when she had to be rescued from a troll and almost let Ron be squished by a killer plant because, when push came to shove, the brightest witch of her age forgot everything she knew about magic.

_Are you a witch or aren't you?_

Genetically, yes. Magically, yes. Hermione Granger was a witch. But when it really mattered, she didn't think like one. She just knew she was going to fail, and people were going to die. And they had laughed at her boggart in Second Year.

Sometimes she hated them for that.

She studied, and she read, and she memorized everything she could learn about magic, hoping one day she would wake up and feel like she belonged. Every time a teacher praised her, it wasn't just a sign that she belonged, it was also a sign she might survive. That someone might care if she didn't. It didn't hurt that it made Malfoy and all his ilk look like the fools they were.

Better hung for a lion than a lamb.

She'd thought Professor Snape was helping her. Telling her the only way he could what she was doing wrong. She'd thought, even if he didn't particularly like her, that at least he respected her. They were fighting on the same side after all – and they were both going to die for the same cause.

A Wizarding World that didn't really like them at all.

She'd seen how tired he looked in Sixth Year, and his lessons in Defense Against the Dark Arts had driven home just how badly they were outclassed. How crippled they were by their inexperience and five years of inadequate instructors. She'd looked around and seen how cocky the boys were. How insufferably confident they were that they could go up against the likes of Lucius Malfoy and win.

And she had known they would lose if they tried.

Somehow, she'd assumed Professor Snape had a different plan in mind. He and Dumbledore. Something that didn't require the wholesale slaughter of the entire graduating class. The sacrifice of three particular Gryffindors perhaps, but not everybody. She had wanted to say thank-you, for all the things he couldn't tell them. All the things he wasn't free to say.

So she came up with a plan.

It had to be secret, and it had to be bold. Something with just enough Slytherin cunning to show she understood what she was saying, but nothing that could betray him to Voldemort. It took her a week to discover the date of his birthday, and another three weeks to make certain her research was solid.

A true apprenticeship was a magical contract. A binding, body and soul. It was an absolute expression of trust and she had known he could never accept it, but that wasn't the point. She'd had to be careful not to use magic, though. A true petition for Apprenticeship was magically recorded in the Ministry's Hall of Records.

She'd chosen the wording carefully, the paper with a precise eye to mimicking the parchment of the past, while making it clear it was nothing of the sort. It had been a gift, an expression of trust. Her way of telling him that she understood and...valued him. People didn't offer magical contracts to people they did not respect. She'd slipped it under his door the morning of his birthday and assumed he would quietly destroy it, to protect them both.

She hadn't expected him to stalk into the Great Hall and tear it up in front of everybody while they were gathered for breakfast. She'd sat there in stunned horror as he tore it – and her - into figurative bloody shreds. She hadn't known anyone could be that cruel - not unless they were someone evil like Lucius Malfoy -and even the Slytherins had been shocked into appalled silence.

Professor Snape had been wild-eyed and snarling as he verbally flayed her alive, and the sound of the Headmaster's hoarse shout was the only thing that finally brought him to a panting stop. He'd turned his head to glare up at the head table, his face going white under Dumbledore's thunderous regard. Then he had tossed the scraps of her carefully prepared gift into her face and she'd never forget the last words he said on the matter.

_A real witch would have known to sign the contract in blood, Miss Granger._

She sat there, unable to flee as he strode from the Hall. She'd have to run past him. Instead, she'd been forced to sit there while everyone stared at her and whispered, ignoring the Headmaster's admonishment to proceed with their meal. Both of the boys had thought her a fool for even thinking Snape would say yes.

Neither asked her why she did it.

Now here was Sarah Williams, Muggleborn, and Gryffindor witch, and he gave no indication he hated her simply for living. Worse, the woman carried four wands. Four! Even if she didn't seem to know what to do with them yet. Nor, Hermione thought resentfully, did she have any regard for how she treated her books.

A rustle behind her had her turning, and her heart felt curiously numb as she watched Professor Snape stride into the classroom, eyes going first to his apprentice, then moving to regard Hermione suspiciously. She'd probably have felt insulted if she could feel anything at all.

Her eyes went to the livid scar just visible beneath his collar and it seemed to pulse in time with the whisper in her ears. It sounded a lot like Tom Riddle, she thought dully, and she wanted to say she didn't care anymore about his opinion. That she was an adult witch and no one could take that away from her. But she couldn't, because it wasn't true.

He was living proof she didn't belong.

God knows it wasn't her that had saved him.

So she gathered her courage and walked up to him, looked into the eyes she had always seen watching her with anger, resentment, and hate. She just hadn't understood until Sixth Year that those were the emotions she was seeing. Another case of Hermione Granger getting it all wrong. She really...

She was just really tired of people hating her.

She took out her wand, her beautiful wand, the symbol of everything this world was supposed to have been. It felt right in her hand, like an extension of her soul. She could almost imagine that it knew what she was about to do, because it tingled, like a mild protest. But not a scream.

She supposed it was tired too.

"You win,"she said simply.

And snapped it in half.


	20. Chapter 20

He told himself she wasn't his responsibility.

Sadly, habit did not agree. That, and the sure knowledge that Minerva was certain to blame him for this little contretemps. The old cat was a right hag when angry, and he had no desire to spend the rest of his life as a teacup.

His apprentice had actually had the gall to order him to chase after Miss Granger before Potter's little friend did something Severus Snape would regret. Not that he would. Regret it. It was none of his business if she chose to run back to Muggleville.

Unfortunately, he had recognized the look on the overly-wanded, bogle-infested Goblin Queen. No doubt she planned to nag him senseless until he gave in out of sheer desperation. Or hexed her morning pumpkin juice. Regrettably, there were certain immutable laws that protected apprentices. Even the annoying ones. He would have to take his revenge later.

Once he had assessed the safety issues involved.

By now, his missing Gryffindor would have discovered the safeguards the Ministry had instituted for the protection of the walking wounded. Charming his wand to find one wayward child was easy enough. Deciding the best way to approach a battle-fatigued witch would be something else.

He finally found her sitting on a remote bench, next to the lake.

She must have sensed his approach.

"The Aurors wouldn't let me leave,"she said resentfully, without turning her head.

For once he agreed with the Ministry.

"Snapping your wand would have been more impressive had you snapped your back-up as well,"he said conversationally.

Then he dropped the pieces of her murdered wand in her lap.

He waited for the guilty flush. The embarrassed drop of the eyes as the enormity of what she had done made itself known. Instead, he found himself frowning when she fingered the jagged edges of her wand, then folded her hands in her lap.

"I don't have one,"she said finally.

Anger crept into his veins, a familiar sting when it came to this particular student.

Of course she didn't.

"You ran around chasing horcruxes with traceable wands?"

Her head jerked around, temper flaring in defense. "What else were we supposed to do? Anyone willing to sell one to us, would have been willing to sell us too. No one ever thought to show us how to make our own."

_You should have stayed where you were supposed to_, he wanted to shout. _You should have trusted us to protect you._

But he didn't.

Plans had been made of course. But in retrospect, Severus was beginning to wonder whether those plans had been designed to save the children, or to deliver Potter to the final sacrificial moment. It was a bitter thought and it tasted no better now than the first time he realized Albus had always known the boy would have to die.

Potter had claimed victory over Dumbledore when he broke the man to his will in that cave. The old wizard had surrendered his life into Potter's hands and that would have been enough for the Elder Wand. Severus had thought...

_No._

Severus had been deliberately led to believe that had been the plan all along. That there was a way to exorcise Riddle's soul from Potter's scar without harming the boy. Then, with the Elder Wand in his possession, Potter could have defeated the Dark Lord and lived happily ever after. Lily's legacy would have lived on, and all debts would have been paid.

Instead, brief seconds of Legilimency on a besieged tower had revealed that the old man had lied. Dumbledore taken back control by disarming Potter and then he deliberately passed control to an unknowing Draco. That was when Severus had known, and it had been far too late to do anything about it.

The hate had been very real, when he cast the final curse.

Severus wondered if Dumbledore had considered it a kindness, his intent to send Severus to his death thinking his honour had been redeemed. After all, if Potter and his friends hadn't been so blasted unpredictable - so incomprehensibly Muggle in their thinking - without those revealing seconds on the Astronomy Tower, Severus would have died never knowing he had failed.

Without a way to remove Voldemort's soul from Potter's body, the boy could never be permitted to gain control of the Elder Wand. No matter who died first, Riddle would take possession in the end. Either with his own hand, or Potter's. So if it was a risk Dumbledore never intended to take, then Potter had never been meant to win.

Instead, he'd been the stalking horse. The visible enemy. The feint, the pawn, the misdirection. In short, all his pain and fear and effort had been intended to do nothing more than distract Voldemort from the traitor in his midst. Inevitably, however, he would die, because when all the horcruxes were gone, Severus himself would have no choice but to kill him.

Not if there was any chance of Voldemort gaining possession of Potter's undamaged soul.

The cycle of horcrux creation could not be allowed to begin again.

"Did it never occur to you, that you weren't supposed to go haring off on your own?" he asked irritably.

He waited for the outrage, the furious protests of destiny and competence. The overweening Gryffindor pride he would have taken pleasure in puncturing.

"We still thought we were supposed to win the war," she said bitterly. "We thought that was what we were supposed to do."

Something inside went cold at that clear-voiced statement. It was familiar, the chill emptiness he heard. The gray certainty that comes with being used. Willingly perhaps, but used nonetheless.

"But it wasn't our job, was it? It was yours."

Bloody Gryffindor hardly sounded impressed by the conclusion. Well, why would she? It had only been his life and soul on the line. Nothing anybody would miss.

"It never made sense to me," she continued," that Dumbledore meant to send Harry after the horcruxes. Chosen One or not, none of us had the right training for that sort of thing. Not to fight Death Eaters."

Oh, but that look of clarity was familiar, too.

He'd seen it in the mirror often enough.

"You weren't supposed to have to fight Death Eaters,"he said shortly.

Training them would simply have encouraged them to go looking for battles they couldn't win.

"Shall I tell you what I learned at Hogwarts instead?"she asked, sounding almost as disillusioned as he had expected her to be.

He resisted the urge to sigh.

"My first year, "she said carefully,"I learned that people wanted me dead, simply because I was Muggleborn."

It was such an obvious conclusion he wondered why she thought it all that important.

"I thought someone had locked the troll in with me on purpose. I was running for the door, and it slammed shut, and I heard someone turn the key."

Her eyes were bleak when she looked at him. The knowledge that he of all people should have understood the fear, the rage, and the helplessness of being deliberately trapped with a monster was there in her eyes.

So was disappointment.

"I was twelve years old and I going to die because no one liked me, and someone hated me enough to kill me. Because I was alone and no one was coming to help me. Because I was Muggleborn. Because Voldemort had gathered up the scared and the stupid and told them it was okay to hate me and my parents, if it made them feel better about themselves."

Then she smiled a strange little smile and whispered.

"Which were you, Snape? Scared or stupid?"

The pain slipped effortlessly beneath his defenses. With the echos of her terror and helpless fury seething around her, he remembered long ago nightmares. Terror-filled nights when he woke sweat-soaked and crying, still hearing sharp claws as they tore through wood, and feeling the hot breath of a werewolf across the back of his neck.

"Did you know about the basilisk as well?"

He closed his eyes. More sins come home to roost. Not his alone, but he had been complicit.

"It was...one of several possibilities,"he said curtly, she of all people was owed this much honesty."Once we knew the Chamber had been opened."

Potter hadn't been the first to question Moaning Myrtle. The Ministry had simply been uninterested in pursuing the truth, when Hagrid had been so convenient. But Headmaster Dippett had questioned her. So had the Aurors. And Acromantulas didn't have glowing eyes.

"So, in First Year the Headmaster used the Philosopher's Stone to test Harry and...?"

"...draw Voldemort out of hiding,"Severus finished grimly, giving her the answer she already knew.

The window of opportunity had been so narrow. Lily's protection. Their control over the boy. Once he matured, once he left Hogwarts, their ability to manipulate events would become limited. It had been a risk they both had deemed worthy.

"And in Second Year he didn't send us home because...?"

Severus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose."...because if we closed the school, there was no guarantee we'd get it open again. Not quickly. If we lost control of the school, we lost control of Potter. Not only couldn't we protect him, we risked..." he cut himself off sharply.

"You risked him not caring enough to die for you,"Miss Granger said softly.

Yes.

That.

"In my own defense, I didn't know that was part of the plan,"Severus said finally.

"Would you have chosen differently, if you had known?"

_Fuck._

"Probably not,"he snapped.

She nodded, and he wanted to do something suitably violent to take that knowing expression off her face.

"Lucius Malfoy threatened my parents that year,"she said unexpectedly. "In broad daylight. With witnesses. I told Dumbledore and he said that anyone connected with Harry was being protected. I don't think he meant it as a threat. It didn't really matter though, did it? He couldn't protect any of us."

Belatedly, he remembered that was the year she got herself Petrified. Somehow, over the years, it had been easy to forget that the only reason no one had died, was sheer dumb luck. Or, perhaps, in Miss Granger's case, a bit of quick-thinking.

He suspected she remembered all too well.

"Is that why you brewed the Polyjuice for Potter?"he asked abruptly, a random memory from his Occlumency lessons with Potter suddenly taking on new significance. Miss Granger's hair had snapped with traceries of blue fire and Potter's immediate reaction had been one of willing trust and trepidation.

She turned her head and gave him a steady look." No. I brewed the Polyjuice because someone was trying to kill Muggleborns and no one else seemed to be doing anything useful about it."

He stayed silent, experience and instinct humming to life. Belatedly. Seven years of memories, memories he had tagged and filed with the confidence of a trained Legilimens crashed down around his feet, leaving certainty and assumptions upended and jumbled.

He looked at her absurdly young face and wondered these memories mattered. Her days of being the brains behind Potter's impulsive adventures were over. Voldemort was dead, and life went on. So why oh why were Slytherin instincts screaming to duck and cover?

What did it matter if her motives had been more than the absurd loyalty of a lonely, socially isolated witch? Even Albus had just sighed and shaken his head at how easily the normally rule-abiding, rule-defending Miss Granger got dragged into misadventure by her devotion to her friends. In all other circumstances the child had been neurotic about her lists and schedules and attempts to control the world around her.

A dangerous, chaotic world which hid a deadly face behind public affability and Ministerial corruption. A world where she had few friends and an outsider's understanding of the Ministry. A world that refused to deal with her on terms she could accept, a world that laughed at her desire for excellence, and threatened her parents.

Oh, hell on ice-skates.

"Why did you try to free the House Elves, Miss Granger?" he asked grimly.

And hoped her reasons had been as foolish and as innocent as he remembered.

They had assumed it had been the typical act of a rash, young Gryffindor. He had respected the courage of her convictions, been irritated by her arrogant assumption she had the right to force the elves unprepared into freedom, and despised the lack of thought and planning that went into her plan. All that research and the reality of the elves magical bondage had completely escaped her.

Or so he had assumed.

She grimaced.

"Miss Granger?"he demanded.

She turned her head back to the lake and shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

"Motive always matters."

Looked at objectively, there wasn't much difference between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters unless one considered motive. Both were ruled by charismatic, powerful wizards, both operated outside the law, and both were committed to do anything, anything at all, to achieve their objective.

Both demanded the time, money, and unquestioning loyalty of their members, both considered themselves the true defender of the Wizarding World, and had any of the Phoenix been revealed as traitors, Severus had no doubt his orders would have been the same as those he had carried out in other service.

Motive was the only thing that mattered.

"It didn't work,"she said sharply.

The old irritation returned. "Surely you didn't think the elves would flock to your cause. That drunken wreck of Crouch's should have told you that."

Something flashed across her face. Annoyance, or perhaps frustration. It occurred to him that combined with her experience with the Time Turner, Miss Granger had learned more than one lesson about biting off more than she could chew that year.

Only instead of looking suitably embarrassed, she tilted her head and regarded him with a look that he belatedly recognized. Clear-eyed, considering, and ruthless. Dumbledore had worn it a lot, when he had looked at Severus.

"It was something my father said once, when I tried to warn him about Malfoy,"she said finally. "That he was just as vulnerable as any other slave owner and his sort of wealth made him a fool. Then he told me time would take care of people like him as long as people like me stood up for what I believed in."

She threw the words at him defiantly, like a challenge.

"I thought people would care,"she said."I had even hoped we could make changes legally,but no one cared. Not even the Gryffindors."

Oh...he would bet a few had cared.

"House Elves are considered a Pureblood privilege, you foolish girl. It was a dangerous time to make that sort of statement. Their parents would have known that, even if your fellow students did not."

She smiled oddly,"Yes."

He closed his eyes briefly and resisted the urge to curse.

"I had hoped there would be more like Dobby – once they heard about what I was doing."she said with a sigh.

Surely she understood by now that Dobby was not the radical she had assumed him? The elf hadn't chosen freedom, he'd simply chosen a different sort of service. The elf had worshipped Potter. He'd have bound himself to him in a heartbeat if the boy had ever asked. He hadn't wanted freedom for himself. He'd just wanted the freedom to follow his chosen master.

"I needed a handful of loyal converts to act as examples and form the core of an underground railroad. Perhaps even act as spies for the Order. That would guarantee that Dumbledore would take them in. His approval, and a noble cause to serve..."

He blinked, startled.

"You thought they would spy for us?"he asked, a bit dumbfounded he hadn't even considered the possibility.

"I thought they'd choose to serve Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter,"she said with a shrug. "That's what they really want isn't it, a chance to serve? As long as they were serving us, they weren't serving people like the Malfoys."

He considered his next words with care. "Don't take this the wrong way, Miss Granger, but that's a very Pureblood sentiment. In fact, it's the sort of reasoning that got the House Elves magically bound in the first place."

She met his assessing gaze and did not smile. "I know."

Yes.

Of course she did.

"You set out to insult Lucius Malfoy? Publicly?"

Regret flickered in her eyes, but he didn't think it was regret for the foolishness of her actions. Yea gods. Crossing wands with Lucius Malfoy when she was all of fourteen. Thank Merlin the man had never noticed. Then his blood chilled as she continued to stare at him, as if waiting for him to get the punchline of a much delayed joke.

She tilted her head. "Did you know that 85% of the Malfoy wealth derives from House Elf labour? The elves aren't just a symbol of their wealth – they are the wealth."

"Malfoy's holdings are so diverse I doubt even he knows half of what he owns,"Severus said flatly.

"Orchards, wineries, mills,"she murmured, ticking them off on her fingers."Several cottage industries ranging from textiles to binderies. All serving the magical community and most of them relying heavily on elf labour to remain competitive. Remove the elves – or require him to pay them competitive salaries – and his financial empire collapses."

Severus stared at her, open-mouthed and wordless.

"I didn't intend to _insult_ him,"she said, a hint of steel and ice creeping into her voice."I planned to _destroy_ him."

Then her mouth twisted with self-deprecation.

"The insult was just a bonus."


End file.
